Experienced Airport Accident Attorneys
On any given day, more than 2 million Americans use an airport and are airborne on commercial flights in the skies above the United States. Thousands of additional citizens are flying in private and/or corporate aircraft as well as other “public use” aircraft such as helicopters. Add together all of the flights worldwide, and you are looking at approximately 3 million people using airports on any given day.
Generally, flying is very safe and the probability of arriving at one’s destination routinely is very high. However, flying is very unforgiving and the occasional airport accident or incident due to human or technical error does occur.
When safety protections break down, they do so with varying intensity. Not all airport events are fatal and, indeed, more non-fatal airport accidents occur. This is the reason why it is important to also distinguish between an aviation accident and an airport incident.
Protecting And Helping Airport Accident Victims
An aviation accident is the most serious and may be defined as such if at least one person is killed or hospitalized for longer than 24 hours and/or the aircraft is destroyed or substantially damaged. Thus, it is possible to have an aviation accident in which no people are seriously injured but the aircraft is lost, as was the case early in 2008 with the loss of a British Airways B777 at Heathrow Airport.
Other airport mishaps occur in which people are not hurt and the aircraft is not damaged or has only sustained minor damage. These events are known as “incidents.” Tracking them is important, and an incident may be described as “an accident that got lucky.” As such, incidents are indicators of the relative safety of air transportation, as there might be 100 incidents that occur for every aviation accident. The study of incidents may help to reduce the risk of accidents.
It might be said that only a few feet or a few seconds make the difference between an airport incident and an airport accident. Airport runway incursions or near-misses between aircraft and ground vehicles at an airport occur on a daily basis. Indeed, the threat of airport runway incursions is so great that regulations regarding the manners of improved signage, lighting, and procedures are constantly being adopted and changed to reduce the inherent risks. For example, new taxiways have been built to reduce the frequency with which aircraft must cross one runway to get to another.
The experienced airport accident attorneys at Nolan Law Group are currently evaluating airport accident cases involving:
- Pilot error
- Bad weather
- Faulty or out-of-date equipment
- Federal Aviation Administration airport regulations’ violations
- Negligence of flight service station employees
- Negligence of federal air traffic controllers
- Failure to fuel the aircraft
- Runway construction
If you or someone you love was injured in an airport accident and would like an airport accident attorney at Nolan Law Group to review your case, please contact us.