Date: 3/16/2009
LOS ANGELES (AP) — DJ AM is seeking $20 million in damages related to a plane crash in South Carolina last year that killed four others.
The celebrity disc jockey, whose real name is Adam Goldstein, is suing the plane’s manufacturer, Learjet, and several other companies.
Goldstein is seeking $10 million for medical expenses, lost earnings, profits and economic damages and another $10 million related to non-economic losses, such as mental and physical pain, according to a document filed Friday.
A jury will decide any damage award if the case goes to trial.
Several of the companies sued last year by Goldstein and fellow crash survivor Travis Barker are seeking a trial delay until after a government investigation of the Sept. 19 crash is complete.
A lawyer for Learjet did not immediately return a phone message on Monday afternoon.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
Jet owner sues SC airport, firms over fatal crash
Date: 1/30/2009
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The owner and operator of a private jet that crashed last year, killing four people, is suing the South Carolina airport, the plane’s manufacturer and a tire company.
Rock drummer Travis Barker and celebrity disc jockey DJ AM, whose real name is Adam Goldstein, were burned in the Sept. 19 crash that killed the pilot, co-pilot and two of Barker’s assistants.
The jet’s owner, Inter Travel & Services Inc. of Irvine, Calif., and the operator, Global Exec Aviation Inc. of Long Beach, Calif., are seeking more than $12 million in damages.
Federal investigators have not yet determined the cause of the crash, but aviation authorities have said cockpit recordings indicated the jet’s crew thought a tire had blown during takeoff. Investigators have said pieces of tire were recovered about 2,800 feet from where the plane started its takeoff down the 8,600-foot runway.
The suit contends that the design of the area beyond the runway at Columbia Metropolitan Airport also contributed to the seriousness of the crash: There was not enough room for the plane to stop, a fence and other equipment damaged the jet’s fuel tanks and the lowered roadway around the airport caused the plane to crash nose first into a raised embankment.
The suit also names Learjet Inc., Bombardier Aerospace Corp. and Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. as defendants.
The airport has denied the allegations in court papers.
Goodyear spokesman Ed Markey said Friday the company was disappointed the suit was filed before the National Transportation Safety Board completed its investigation.
“While the tires may have been involved, it is still too early to speculate on a cause,” Markey said. “The performance of a tire is dependent upon how the tire was used, if it was properly maintained and whether it was damaged before the accident.”
“It’s pretty common to have lawsuits filed after an incident,” said Leo Knaapen, spokesman for Learjet manufacturer Bombardier Aerospace. Knaapen would not comment specifically on the South Carolina case.
At least four other lawsuits have been filed after the crash, including ones by Barker and Goldstein in Los Angeles.
___
Information from: The State, http://www.thestate.com
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The owner and operator of a private jet that crashed last year, killing four people, is suing the South Carolina airport, the plane’s manufacturer and a tire company.
Rock drummer Travis Barker and celebrity disc jockey DJ AM, whose real name is Adam Goldstein, were burned in the Sept. 19 crash that killed the pilot, co-pilot and two of Barker’s assistants.
The jet’s owner, Inter Travel & Services Inc. of Irvine, Calif., and the operator, Global Exec Aviation Inc. of Long Beach, Calif., are seeking more than $12 million in damages.
Federal investigators have not yet determined the cause of the crash, but aviation authorities have said cockpit recordings indicated the jet’s crew thought a tire had blown during takeoff. Investigators have said pieces of tire were recovered about 2,800 feet from where the plane started its takeoff down the 8,600-foot runway.
The suit contends that the design of the area beyond the runway at Columbia Metropolitan Airport also contributed to the seriousness of the crash: There was not enough room for the plane to stop, a fence and other equipment damaged the jet’s fuel tanks and the lowered roadway around the airport caused the plane to crash nose first into a raised embankment.
The suit also names Learjet Inc., Bombardier Aerospace Corp. and Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. as defendants.
The airport has denied the allegations in court papers.
Goodyear spokesman Ed Markey said Friday the company was disappointed the suit was filed before the National Transportation Safety Board completed its investigation.
“While the tires may have been involved, it is still too early to speculate on a cause,” Markey said. “The performance of a tire is dependent upon how the tire was used, if it was properly maintained and whether it was damaged before the accident.”
“It’s pretty common to have lawsuits filed after an incident,” said Leo Knaapen, spokesman for Learjet manufacturer Bombardier Aerospace. Knaapen would not comment specifically on the South Carolina case.
At least four other lawsuits have been filed after the crash, including ones by Barker and Goldstein in Los Angeles.
___
Information from: The State, http://www.thestate.com
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
Mexico rules out bomb, failed engine in jet crash
Date: 11/7/2008
By E. EDUARDO CASTILLO
Associated Press Writer
MEXICO CITY (AP) _ Mexican experts say they have ruled out a bomb or engine failure as the cause of a plane crash that killed Mexico’s interior secretary.
The probe into the cause of Tuesday’s crash continues, but officials of Mexico’s Transportation Department said the findings reinforced their initial opinion that no foul play was involved.
“This reinforced the hypothesis that the crash was an accident,” said Transportation Secretary Luis Tellez.
Tellez told a news conference on Friday that all parts of the plane necessary for flight had been found at the crash scene, proving that none had been lost in flight.
Investigators from the federal Attorney General’s Office also said chemical tests revealed no trace of explosives.
From the start, authorities said it appeared to be an accident, but recent attacks on police officials by Mexico’s increasingly violent drug cartels led many here to speculate the crash had been an attack.
The violence has surged during a 2-year-old army and police offensive to wrest control from drug cartels.
Five people on the ground and nine people on the plane were killed in Tuesday’s crash, including Interior Secretary Juan Camilo Mourino and former anti-drug prosecutor Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos.
The 37-year-old Mourino, one of President Felipe Calderon’s closest confidants, was Mexico’s equivalent of vice president and domestic security chief. Santiago Vasconcelos had been the target of at least one previous assassination plot.
The crash occurred in clear weather, and in their last recorded radio conversation, the plane’s flight crew calmly discussed radio frequencies and speed with controllers. The tape went silent just as radar lost the plane’s altitude reading.
Two flight recorders from the Learjet 45 have been sent to the U.S. for examination. Tellez has said experts would need at least a week to analyze the plane’s voice and data recorders for clues to what went wrong.
Experts from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and Britain’s Civil Aviation Authority are in Mexico helping with the investigation.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
By E. EDUARDO CASTILLO
Associated Press Writer
MEXICO CITY (AP) _ Mexican experts say they have ruled out a bomb or engine failure as the cause of a plane crash that killed Mexico’s interior secretary.
The probe into the cause of Tuesday’s crash continues, but officials of Mexico’s Transportation Department said the findings reinforced their initial opinion that no foul play was involved.
“This reinforced the hypothesis that the crash was an accident,” said Transportation Secretary Luis Tellez.
Tellez told a news conference on Friday that all parts of the plane necessary for flight had been found at the crash scene, proving that none had been lost in flight.
Investigators from the federal Attorney General’s Office also said chemical tests revealed no trace of explosives.
From the start, authorities said it appeared to be an accident, but recent attacks on police officials by Mexico’s increasingly violent drug cartels led many here to speculate the crash had been an attack.
The violence has surged during a 2-year-old army and police offensive to wrest control from drug cartels.
Five people on the ground and nine people on the plane were killed in Tuesday’s crash, including Interior Secretary Juan Camilo Mourino and former anti-drug prosecutor Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos.
The 37-year-old Mourino, one of President Felipe Calderon’s closest confidants, was Mexico’s equivalent of vice president and domestic security chief. Santiago Vasconcelos had been the target of at least one previous assassination plot.
The crash occurred in clear weather, and in their last recorded radio conversation, the plane’s flight crew calmly discussed radio frequencies and speed with controllers. The tape went silent just as radar lost the plane’s altitude reading.
Two flight recorders from the Learjet 45 have been sent to the U.S. for examination. Tellez has said experts would need at least a week to analyze the plane’s voice and data recorders for clues to what went wrong.
Experts from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and Britain’s Civil Aviation Authority are in Mexico helping with the investigation.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
Black boxes from Mexican plane crash sent to US
Date: 11/7/2008
By ALEXANDRA OLSON
Associated Press Writer
MEXICO CITY (AP) _ Two flight recorders from a plane crash that killed Mexico’s No. 2 government official were sent to the U.S. for examination, officials said Thursday, amid widespread speculation — but no evidence — that drug cartels were to blame.
Both “black boxes” were found where the Learjet 45 slammed into rush-hour traffic in a posh Mexico City neighborhood, Transportation Secretary Luis Tellez said at a news conference. Five people on the ground and nine people on the plane were killed in Tuesday’s crash, including Interior Secretary Juan Camilo Mourino.
Officials say they have few clues as to why the plane suddenly dropped from the evening sky.
But they have been unusually open in publicizing details of the investigation, trying to discourage conspiracy theories that thrive in a country on edge from relentless news of drug-related shootings, kidnappings and beheadings. The violence has surged during a 2-year-old army and police offensive to wrest control from drug cartels.
The 37-year-old Mourino, one of President Felipe Calderon’s closest confidants, was Mexico’s equivalent of vice president and domestic security chief. Also on the plane was former anti-drug prosecutor Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, who had been the target of at least one assassination attempt.
“Nobody is more interested than me in the truth emerging and the cause of this incident being cleared up,” Calderon said at a memorial ceremony for the dead.
Tellez said experts would need at least a week to analyze the plane’s voice and data recorders for clues to what went wrong.
The crash occurred in clear weather, and in their last recorded radio conversation, the plane’s flight crew calmly discussed radio frequencies and speed with controllers. The tape went silent just as radar lost the plane’s altitude reading.
“Everything was normal on the flight, and a few seconds before the accident, something happened that significantly altered” the situation, said Gilberto Lopez, a pilot overseeing the probe. “At this moment, all the possibilities are potentially important.”
He said experts are following the normal lines of investigation for any crash, including possible human error, mechanical failures, maintenance problems or turbulence caused by other aircraft.
Experts from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and Britain’s Civil Aviation Authority are in Mexico helping with the investigation.
On Thursday, Calderon’s office said that U.S. President-elect Barack Obama had expressed his condolences for the deaths in a phone call with Calderon, who had called to congratulate Obama on his victory.
In an editorial Thursday, El Universal newspaper urged people to wait for results of the investigation before jumping to conclusions. But it also noted that Mexico’s “history is filled with assassinations that have never been cleared up or whose resolution does not deserve the trust of public opinion.”
In an unrelated incident, a small plane owned by a flight school made an emergency landing in a field just outside Mexico City, injuring both people aboard the craft. There was no immediate information on their condition or the cause of the mishap.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
By ALEXANDRA OLSON
Associated Press Writer
MEXICO CITY (AP) _ Two flight recorders from a plane crash that killed Mexico’s No. 2 government official were sent to the U.S. for examination, officials said Thursday, amid widespread speculation — but no evidence — that drug cartels were to blame.
Both “black boxes” were found where the Learjet 45 slammed into rush-hour traffic in a posh Mexico City neighborhood, Transportation Secretary Luis Tellez said at a news conference. Five people on the ground and nine people on the plane were killed in Tuesday’s crash, including Interior Secretary Juan Camilo Mourino.
Officials say they have few clues as to why the plane suddenly dropped from the evening sky.
But they have been unusually open in publicizing details of the investigation, trying to discourage conspiracy theories that thrive in a country on edge from relentless news of drug-related shootings, kidnappings and beheadings. The violence has surged during a 2-year-old army and police offensive to wrest control from drug cartels.
The 37-year-old Mourino, one of President Felipe Calderon’s closest confidants, was Mexico’s equivalent of vice president and domestic security chief. Also on the plane was former anti-drug prosecutor Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, who had been the target of at least one assassination attempt.
“Nobody is more interested than me in the truth emerging and the cause of this incident being cleared up,” Calderon said at a memorial ceremony for the dead.
Tellez said experts would need at least a week to analyze the plane’s voice and data recorders for clues to what went wrong.
The crash occurred in clear weather, and in their last recorded radio conversation, the plane’s flight crew calmly discussed radio frequencies and speed with controllers. The tape went silent just as radar lost the plane’s altitude reading.
“Everything was normal on the flight, and a few seconds before the accident, something happened that significantly altered” the situation, said Gilberto Lopez, a pilot overseeing the probe. “At this moment, all the possibilities are potentially important.”
He said experts are following the normal lines of investigation for any crash, including possible human error, mechanical failures, maintenance problems or turbulence caused by other aircraft.
Experts from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and Britain’s Civil Aviation Authority are in Mexico helping with the investigation.
On Thursday, Calderon’s office said that U.S. President-elect Barack Obama had expressed his condolences for the deaths in a phone call with Calderon, who had called to congratulate Obama on his victory.
In an editorial Thursday, El Universal newspaper urged people to wait for results of the investigation before jumping to conclusions. But it also noted that Mexico’s “history is filled with assassinations that have never been cleared up or whose resolution does not deserve the trust of public opinion.”
In an unrelated incident, a small plane owned by a flight school made an emergency landing in a field just outside Mexico City, injuring both people aboard the craft. There was no immediate information on their condition or the cause of the mishap.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
Feds: Doomed crew in SC crash thought tire blew
Date: 9/21/2008 6:33 PM
By MEG KINNARD
Associated Press Writer
WEST COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The doomed crew piloting a Learjet that crashed on takeoff, killing four people and injuring two popular musicians, thought a tire blew as they hurtled down the runway and struggled unsuccessfully to stop the plane, a federal safety official said Sunday.
National Transportation Safety Board member Debbie Hersman said a cockpit voice recording of the Friday night crash indicates the crew tried to abort the takeoff, but then signaled the efforts were failing.
“The crew reacted to a sound that was consistent with a tire blowout,” Hersman said.
Former Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker and celebrity disc jockey DJ AM remained in critical but stable condition Sunday; one of their doctors said he expected them to fully recover.
Two of the musicians’ close friends and the plane’s pilot and co-pilot were killed when it shot off the end of the runway, ripped through a fence and crossed a highway. It came to rest on an embankment a quarter-mile from the end of the runway, engulfed in flames.
Hersman said no cause of the crash has been determined and the investigation is ongoing. She did say that pieces of tire were recovered about 2,800 feet from where the plane started its takeoff. The runway is 8,600 feet long.
The plane was traveling at least 92 mph, its minimum takeoff speed, when the crew thought the tire burst, Hersman said.
One aviation expert said the crew would have had just moments to abort or lift off because such a Learjet needs more than 5,000 feet of runway to get in the air. If the plane hit about 138 mph, which can happen quickly during takeoff, the crew would have run out of runway, said Mary Schiavo, former inspector general for the federal Transportation Department.
“If you have to abort a takeoff because of a problem with the plane, you don’t have a lot of runway left because it uses up so much just on its takeoff roll,” Schiavo said.
The jet, which was headed for Van Nuys, Calif., is owned by Global Exec Aviation, a California-based charter company, and was certified to operate last year, Hersman said.
Pilot Sarah Lemmon, 31, of Anaheim Hills, Calif., and co-pilot James Bland, 52, of Carlsbad, Calif., died in the crash. Also killed were Chris Baker, 29, of Studio City, Calif., and Charles Still, 25, of Los Angeles. Baker was an assistant to Barker and Still was a security guard for the musician.
Investigators said they want to speak with Barker and Goldstein for their accounts of the crash, including how they survived. One witness said he discovered the musicians in the street near the fiery wreck as they frantically tried to douse their burning clothes.
Hersman said officials will give the men more time to recuperate. “They’re the ones that are going to be able to give us the best firsthand knowledge,” she said.
Dr. Fred Mullins, medical director of the Joseph M. Still Burn Center, said the two suffered second- and third-degree burns but had no other injuries from the crash and are in overall good health.
“Anybody who can survive a plane crash is pretty lucky,” Mullins told reporters during a news conference Sunday morning.
Barker was burned on his torso and lower body and DJ AM, whose real name is Adam Goldstein, was burned on an arm and a portion of his scalp, according to a statement from the musicians’ families released by the hospital. Such injuries can take a year to fully heal, however Mullins said he didn’t think it would take that long.
Several fans visited the hospital over the weekend. One carried a sign that read: “Get Well Travis.”
“I was just shocked when I first heard it and I knew that I had to do something,” said Ryan Meadows, a 19-year-old college student from Augusta.
Barker and Goldstein had performed a together under the name TRVSDJ-AM at a free concert in Columbia on Friday night. The show, which included performances by former Jane’s Addiction singer Perry Farrell and singer Gavin DeGraw, drew about 10,000 people to a neighborhood near the University of South Carolina.
Barker, 32, was one of the more colorful members of the multiplatinum-selling punk rock band Blink-182, whose biggest album was 1999′s CD “Enema of the State” and sold more than 5 million copies in the United States alone.
After Blink-182 disbanded in 2005, Barker went on to form the rock band (+44) — pronounced “plus forty-four.” He also starred in the MTV reality series “Meet the Barkers” with his then-wife, former Miss USA Shanna Moakler. The show documented the former couple’s lavish wedding and home life. Their later split, reconciliation and subsequent breakup made them tabloid favorites.
Goldstein, 35, is a popular DJ for hire who at one time was engaged to Nicole Richie and dated singer/actress Mandy Moore. While he became a gossip favorite for his romances, he draws respect from music aficionados for his DJ skills.
Barker and Goldstein performed as part of the house band at the MTV Video Music Awards earlier this month.
Associated Press Writer Page Ivey in Augusta, Ga., contributed to this report.
On the Net:
http://www.djam.com/
http://www.gavindegraw.com/
http://www.blink182.com/
http://www.helicopter-law.com
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
By MEG KINNARD
Associated Press Writer
WEST COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The doomed crew piloting a Learjet that crashed on takeoff, killing four people and injuring two popular musicians, thought a tire blew as they hurtled down the runway and struggled unsuccessfully to stop the plane, a federal safety official said Sunday.
National Transportation Safety Board member Debbie Hersman said a cockpit voice recording of the Friday night crash indicates the crew tried to abort the takeoff, but then signaled the efforts were failing.
“The crew reacted to a sound that was consistent with a tire blowout,” Hersman said.
Former Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker and celebrity disc jockey DJ AM remained in critical but stable condition Sunday; one of their doctors said he expected them to fully recover.
Two of the musicians’ close friends and the plane’s pilot and co-pilot were killed when it shot off the end of the runway, ripped through a fence and crossed a highway. It came to rest on an embankment a quarter-mile from the end of the runway, engulfed in flames.
Hersman said no cause of the crash has been determined and the investigation is ongoing. She did say that pieces of tire were recovered about 2,800 feet from where the plane started its takeoff. The runway is 8,600 feet long.
The plane was traveling at least 92 mph, its minimum takeoff speed, when the crew thought the tire burst, Hersman said.
One aviation expert said the crew would have had just moments to abort or lift off because such a Learjet needs more than 5,000 feet of runway to get in the air. If the plane hit about 138 mph, which can happen quickly during takeoff, the crew would have run out of runway, said Mary Schiavo, former inspector general for the federal Transportation Department.
“If you have to abort a takeoff because of a problem with the plane, you don’t have a lot of runway left because it uses up so much just on its takeoff roll,” Schiavo said.
The jet, which was headed for Van Nuys, Calif., is owned by Global Exec Aviation, a California-based charter company, and was certified to operate last year, Hersman said.
Pilot Sarah Lemmon, 31, of Anaheim Hills, Calif., and co-pilot James Bland, 52, of Carlsbad, Calif., died in the crash. Also killed were Chris Baker, 29, of Studio City, Calif., and Charles Still, 25, of Los Angeles. Baker was an assistant to Barker and Still was a security guard for the musician.
Investigators said they want to speak with Barker and Goldstein for their accounts of the crash, including how they survived. One witness said he discovered the musicians in the street near the fiery wreck as they frantically tried to douse their burning clothes.
Hersman said officials will give the men more time to recuperate. “They’re the ones that are going to be able to give us the best firsthand knowledge,” she said.
Dr. Fred Mullins, medical director of the Joseph M. Still Burn Center, said the two suffered second- and third-degree burns but had no other injuries from the crash and are in overall good health.
“Anybody who can survive a plane crash is pretty lucky,” Mullins told reporters during a news conference Sunday morning.
Barker was burned on his torso and lower body and DJ AM, whose real name is Adam Goldstein, was burned on an arm and a portion of his scalp, according to a statement from the musicians’ families released by the hospital. Such injuries can take a year to fully heal, however Mullins said he didn’t think it would take that long.
Several fans visited the hospital over the weekend. One carried a sign that read: “Get Well Travis.”
“I was just shocked when I first heard it and I knew that I had to do something,” said Ryan Meadows, a 19-year-old college student from Augusta.
Barker and Goldstein had performed a together under the name TRVSDJ-AM at a free concert in Columbia on Friday night. The show, which included performances by former Jane’s Addiction singer Perry Farrell and singer Gavin DeGraw, drew about 10,000 people to a neighborhood near the University of South Carolina.
Barker, 32, was one of the more colorful members of the multiplatinum-selling punk rock band Blink-182, whose biggest album was 1999′s CD “Enema of the State” and sold more than 5 million copies in the United States alone.
After Blink-182 disbanded in 2005, Barker went on to form the rock band (+44) — pronounced “plus forty-four.” He also starred in the MTV reality series “Meet the Barkers” with his then-wife, former Miss USA Shanna Moakler. The show documented the former couple’s lavish wedding and home life. Their later split, reconciliation and subsequent breakup made them tabloid favorites.
Goldstein, 35, is a popular DJ for hire who at one time was engaged to Nicole Richie and dated singer/actress Mandy Moore. While he became a gossip favorite for his romances, he draws respect from music aficionados for his DJ skills.
Barker and Goldstein performed as part of the house band at the MTV Video Music Awards earlier this month.
Associated Press Writer Page Ivey in Augusta, Ga., contributed to this report.
On the Net:
http://www.djam.com/
http://www.gavindegraw.com/
http://www.blink182.com/
http://www.helicopter-law.com
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.