Sheer fright seen as lawsuit claim for Southwest survivors

Bloomberg

After the crash come the claims. Being on an airplane more than six miles in the air when an engine blows up and sends shrapnel through a window is an experience so scary that aviation lawyers say it’s not just the family of the woman killed on a Southwest Airlines Co. flight this week who could have a case.
“All of the passengers here, and the crew, will likely have claims,” said Robert Clifford, founder of Chicago-based Clifford Law Offices, who’s been involved in every domestic commercial aviation disaster since the 1970s. “Even if these people were not physically injured,” he said, “many, many of them will experience symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.”
The people who were sending “videos to their families, saying, ‘These are my last words to you,’ which is something that did occur in this incident, that kind of person will live with that for the rest of their life,” he said. The plane was carrying 149 people, including 5 crew.
Days after a jet engine exploded about 32,500 feet over Pennsylvania 20 minutes into a flight, federal and corporate inspectors are examining what happened. The National Transportation Safety Board said it will take at least a year to pinpoint what caused the engine failure that led to the first fatality on a US-registered airline in more than nine years.
In the meantime, several experts with knowledge of commercial airline disasters said that Southwest will likely lead the charge to work with passengers and their families.
In cases of serious injury or death, an airline will usually advance funds to help passengers with immediate needs. George Hamlin, a transportation consultant based in Fairfax, Va., who has worked with airlines and commercial aviation suppliers, said that although he’s not sure “non-physical injury” would be covered under that scenario, Southwest’s reputation suggests the company will go to some lengths to appease people who were on the flight.
Still, that may not preclude litigation down the road, though the precedent for liability based on emotional trauma or non-serious injuries is ambiguous. Clifford is particularly attuned to what forced Flight 1380 to abort its route to Dallas and land instead in Philadelphia.
“Uncontained engine failures, in which parts of the engine burst through the protective casing called a cowling, have a special history for me in my work,” he said.
Technical experts from Boeing Co., which makes the 737 jetliner involved in the incident, and engine maker CFM International, a venture of General Electric Co. and France’s Safran SA, are gathering clues about what caused the accident.
Southwest workers, Clifford said, cannot sue their employer. They would, however, have standing to sue General Electric or the manufacturer of any faulty component of the engine. GE, Boeing and Southwest will probably pool funding for settlements and sort out reimbursements later, according to Clifford.
Every commercial plane in the sky is insured for anywhere from $1.85 billion to $2.1 billion. Each company involved has its own insurance coverage, he said. “All of those insurance interests have already gotten together,” Clifford said.

Airline gives $5,000 to passengers on fatal flight
Bloomberg

Southwest Airlines Co. is providing $5,000 checks and $1,000 travel vouchers to passengers who were on a flight this week when an engine broke apart, killing a woman on board.
“We value you as our customer and hope you will allow us another opportunity to restore your confidence in Southwest,” Chief Executive Officer Gary Kelly said in a letter to the customers. “In this spirit, we are sending you a check in the amount of $5,000 to cover any of your immediate financial needs.”
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is trying to determine why a fan blade tore loose, shattering the CFM engine and shooting fragments at a wing and the fuselage of the Boeing Co. 737-700. Federal investigators found signs of metal fatigue where the blade broke off.
Jennifer Riordan died after debris destroyed the window next to her, causing the mother of two to be partially sucked through the opening. The Albuquerque, New Mexico, resident was one of 144 passengers and five crew members on Flight 1380 when the midair accident occurred near Philadelphia, en route to Dallas from New York on April 17.