There was legal wrangling last week regarding lawsuits that were filed by families of the victims of a 2009 commuter plane crash near Buffalo, N.Y., a tragedy that took 50 lives, according to the Buffalo News.
http://www.buffalonews.com/city/communities/clarence/article607940.ece
The company that operated Continental Connection Flight 3407 filed a motion claiming that federal law should be used for the state lawsuits filed by six families against the airline, according to the News. Those suits are being handled by New York Supreme Court Judge Frederick Marshall.
The attorney for operator Colgan Air Inc. and its parent, Pinnacle Airlines, is arguing that pilot training and testing — a major issue in the 2009 crash — are governed by federal regulations.
But the lawyers for the survivors of the crash victims maintain that New York common law should be applied to their suits. The News wrote that under state law, Colgan was required to have acted with reasonable care.
The newspaper quoted attorney Hugh Russ, who represents on of the crash victim’s families. He charged that as part of its regular business practices, “Colgan deliberately put an unqualified pilot in the plane, and Colgan failed to train the pilot how to recover from a stall.”
Another defendant in the litigation, FlightSafety International Inc., has filed a motion seeking to have the suit against it dismissed. In the lawsuit, the company is charged with being negligent when it trained Flight 3407’s crew, Capt. Marvin Renslow and First Officer Rebecca Shaw, according to the News.
FlightSafety is accused of not training Renslow and Shaw on ways of “stall recovery or use of the stick pusher (to avert a stall),” according to the News.