Who Should Pay After The Reno Air Races Disaster?

[NYCA News]

NYCAviation:

Who Should Pay After The Reno Air Races Disaster? (http://nycaviation.com/2011/09/who-should-pay-after-the-reno-air-races-disaster/)

Aviation attorney Max Kennerly offers insight into the possible legal repercussions of the Reno Air Race tragedy which left 10 dead and dozens more injured.
[Click to Read Full Article (http://nycaviation.com/2011/09/who-should-pay-after-the-reno-air-races-disaster/)]

[Greg_NY]

This was a very interesting read. Thanks

[cancidas]

i said this on facebook too, i really don't think this should be called a disaster just yet. it was a horrible answer for sure, but let's let the NTSB figure out what happened before making it sound worse than it actually was. i'm sure that the lawsuits will be out in force in a short while.

[Matt Molnar]

Regardless of the cause, I'd say anything that kills and injures that many people can be considered a "disaster."

[mirrodie]

Gotham, to use your parlance, then, driving is a disaster. Im confident the daily tally of injuries and fatalities is far higher.

[NIKV69]

Remember the NTSB provides cover by using the term "probable cause" At the end of the day if mechanical failure is found to be the probable cause many of these if not all of the law suits will be thrown out. It will be extemely hard to prove the people that produce the air race or the pilots were negligent.

[RDU-JFK]

Remember the NTSB provides cover by using the term "probable cause" At the end of the day if mechanical failure is found to be the probable cause many of these if not all of the law suits will be thrown out. It will be extemely hard to prove the people that produce the air race or the pilots were negligent.
Even with an unclear cause and difficulty inproving pilots' negligence, some aviation plaintiffs' attorney will be able to extract some sort of settlement from the insurer(s).

Here's how it will go. Like the article stated, everyone and anyone connected with aviation ops at the airshow will be named in the lawsuits. This will include the owner/operator of the P51, Reno Airport Authority, the organizers of the Reno Air Races, whomever performed the most recent maintenance on the P51, even the FBO that fueled the aircraft in question. Each of these entities (should) have their own insurance policy. The Reno Airport Authority probably buys a separate airshow liability policy which will probably handle the brunt of the settlements/damage awards but all these other indirect players will all be named in lawsuits. The aviation attorneys typically use the "deep pockets" principle, i.e. focus on the entity that has the highest valued insurance policy or lots of assets. Like for 9/11, many of the victims' families are suing AA and UA. Were they primarily negligent for the hijacking and the results? No, but they have high liability limits so they'll be paying.

Even if its a freak accident where no one knows what went wrong, rest assured the families will collect from whomever has the highest insurance policy limit. The insurers will settle for a decent sum rather than expensive litigation.