In Blum v. RES Associates, Inc., 439 S.E.2d 712 (Ga. Ct. App. 1993), an airport operator was found not liable to an airplane owner for destruction of plane before the airport operator took over the airport. An airplane was damaged at the airport in 1988 before the current airport operator leased the airport in 1991.
Airplane owner claimed that the airport operator was liable for damage under successor-in-interest theory. Court rejected airplane owner's theory on the basis that the lease entered into by airport operator did not make the operator responsible for the previous operator's liability. Additionally, the contract between the airplane owner and the former operator expired in 1988 and in the asset purchase agreement the operator only agreed to purchase liabilities on contracts which existed in 1991.
In Remo v. United States, 852 F. Supp. 357 (E.D. Pa. 1994), plaintiffs brought a claim under the Federal Tort Claims Act for wrongful death alleging that the air traffic controller breached a duty to warn the Cessna pilot of the presence of a Bonanza aircraft. Plaintiffs also alleged that the air traffic controller prematurely released the Cessna to the common traffic advisory frequency (CTAF) at the destination airport, as the airplane was still within the airport radar service area of a neighboring, controlled airport.
Based on expert testimony reconstructing the flight path of the aircraft, the court held that the Bonanza would not have appeared on radar. The court also held that the air traffic controller properly released the Cessna to the CTAF because no conflicting traffic was displayed on the radar.
In Budden v. United States, 15 F.3d 1444 (8th Cir. 1994), plaintiffs brought a wrongful death claim under the Federal Tort Claims Ac based on the alleged negligence of a Flight Service Station weather briefer to provide the decedent pilot with an adequate preflight weather briefing.
Even though the court found that the weather briefer acted negligently, the court held that the United States was not liable because the pilot's continuation of the flight into deteriorating weather was the sole proximate cause of his crash.
In Beech Aircraft Corp., v. Unites States of America, 51 F.3d 834 (9th Cir. 1995), the court held the air controller was not liable for failing to aniticpate that a pilot would execute an illegal circle-to-land maneuver after declaring a missed approach. the plaintiffs contended that the air traffic controller was responsible for the crash of the plane into a mall, because the controller had condoned this unauthorized practice on prior occasions and had failed to contact the pilot and demand that he excecute the normal missed approach procedure.
The Court held that air traffic controllers wer not negligent becasue the pilot had the ultimate responsibility for the safe handling of his aircraft and the controllers were not required to anticipate the unlawful and negligent conduct of the pilot.
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