Posts about: "Grief" [Posts: 12 Page: 1 of 1]¶

If someone at AA had said \x93hey I don\x92t like this side-step procedure at DCA, I think it\x92s dangerous and we have safety reports to back it up, let\x92s tell the pilots not to do the side-step until further notice\x94\x85\x85how would that have been received by their colleagues and DCA? Would DCA execs have pushed back on AA and threatened delays? If AA had implemented a policy like that ( easy for me to say with hindsight) what effect would that have had on the operating crews?
Would it have been like the Lufthansa who received no end of grief over the airways while trying to adhere to company policy?
If a CP had put their foot down and implemented policy like that would they be thought of as troublesome within their own Airline?
On that note\x85.. did any Airline have policy refusing the side-step in certain conditions? ie at night?
I\x92m enjoying the conversation and appreciating the thought that people are putting into their contributions so thank you.
Framer

"Unable"

"Low point of the whole hearing....." (Downwind_Left)

Also a high point - let me explain. ..... First, it was one of a goodly number of instances when Chairwoman Homendy proved all over again why she is an outstanding servant of the public interest.

But most observers of how the Board has operated over the past several years already would have agreed with that (imo).

Personally I didn't observe the elbowing on livestream but when the Chair noted it and that witnesses would be moved, it made sense. Together with the now widely derided rationale (on Wednesday) for not adding a notation on the helicopter route charts - in some terminology or nomenclature if "hot spots" was unavailable - the FAA witnesses in question, as I assessed their statements until that point, had been working mightily to give this accident an air of "excused inevitably." I need to point out this slam on their apparently questionable sincerity-plus-candor explicitly does not include the ATCT supervisor who testified at length and, in my view, honorably.

I don't want to comment yet on whether the accident victims' families will have a valid legal argument about the issue of "in trail" spacing, with regard to which one of the FAA witnesses in question described the matter in quite divergent terms from the way in which the Potomac Tracon official described it. But even reserving further comment, still it appears that if the answer for why the "in trail" memo was not acted upon favorably is that Runway 3-3 was going to be used more frequently, doesn't that answer: (a) mean that the pace of approaching and landing aircraft, in and of itself and also when combined with departures, would remain intense for DCA, and (b) the continued high tempo would also continue to complicate the proper - which is to say safe - control of helicopter flights most especially in the glaring light of the fact that Route 4 intersects the approach path to 3-3? As raw material for the legal argumentation that the FAA's actions and omissions were ministerial, and not matters of policy, this could be another call of, blood in the water.

(Of course all concerned know that the "unwritten policy" choice was to move traffic and hope for safe outcomes only. Maybe that often-criticized approach taken in the United States would prove out in an actual courtroom battle as a regrettable but nevertheless sufficient "policy decision" so as to allow sovereign immunity. But does the United States FAA really want to litigate this issue? Against some of the strongest and most experienced advocates ever to enunciate "Approach" in a courtroom? My understanding is the families, or some of them at least, are rep'd by attorneys and counselors who .... aren't finding time to sit in Starbux and post here.)

There were two other, at least, pieces of FAA testimony that, in my deposition-taking days, would have gone on for some hours more. No one could say what the Assistant LC was doing at the critical times. How could this not have been nailed down in the interviews? Also, what in the world is "debriefing" after training? How and why was that more important than keeping the helicopter position staffed?

I wish not to cast aspersions on any DCA ATCOs whatsoever. The testimony about why FAA did not get both alcohol and drug testing done in accordance with established rules was just another piece of shattered credibility - but as Board Member Inman stated, there is no basis to believe or think those kinds of problems were factors, and so that's not the point here. I mean, it wasn't clear fatalities had occurred very, very soon after the event? Good grief.

Perhaps the contretemps afoot in the investigations - and surrounding public relations affairs - in Korea and India have led me to some misunderstandings, but has it become time to think about whether the U.S. should have an AAIB? and not combine aviation into the general category of Transportation? For now, Member Inman said it well and succinctly: "Do better."

H 'n' H.
Ordinarily I have no objection to lawyer bashing (and I've been known (in non-anonymous mode) to tell one or more good lawyer jokes).

Before stating why I object to the aspersion you've cast on legal types in the context of the DCA mid-air collision and the litigation arising from it, I'll suggest that probably most all forum posters (and readers), if not literally all, have heard either an ex-husband or ex-wife relate their unrequited frustration and anger at how the other spouse "got everything", "ripped me off", "took me to the cleaners" and so on. And then someone else will say, "yeah, and the lawyers are the only ones who profit in a divorce." The contradiction is rarely called out, but it is no less a contradiction.

But as to this case. The passenger manifest of the PSA flight isn't necessary to make this point, but I'm sure the estimable Mr. Clifford would consume hours of argument and pages of supporting documents making it clear that 64 lives were cut short, and many were people in the prime of their adult lives - not that one life should be worth more than any other life in compensation in court proceedings, but taking for example the relatively early career attorneys who perished in the accident, their earnings potential over the course of their careers is less speculative than, say, projections about one of the youthful skaters (although I'm pretty sure there are standards which have been worked out in the mine run of personal injury and wrongful death cases). My point is, this case will yield quite significant damage awards in the end. Yes, I realize that issues of immunity of federal agencies will have to be surmounted; having posted a lot about theses issues I realize they exist. Yet the citations of FAA orders, procedures, and rules in the Complaint does suggest that plaintiffs are ready to overcome the immunity argument. And I'm leaving for another day and place the consideration, how do you think it would affect the FAA in the long run to argue that "na na you can't get me" because of "legal technicalities" when it is pretty predictable at this point that NTSB in its final report will be, shall we say, either unkind or unsparing to FAA, or both, in assessing causes and effects.

So the case is likely, if not certain, to pay out big. The lawyers will get - unless legal counsel are using very different formulas than are typical in cases of this type - about one-third.

How is it then that only the lawyers do well? The argument is not about whether big-ticket damage awards can replace a lost loved one. The argument is about whether only the lawyers do well. "Grief" begins with the same four letters as "Grievance" and the crash victims' families certainly are individuals aggrieved by the negligence of some or all of the defendants. Maybe we can split semantic fibers over whether having their grievance abated by significant financial compensation is within the meaning of "doing well" - but under the facts of this case and their tragic losses, I think they will be at least "doing better". And so not only the lawyers.

This all having been said, apologies accepted, naturally.
WR 6-3

I can see exactly where you are coming from Capn Blogs so I don't blame you at all for your comment above! After all, you can say exactly the same for Aircraft Certification too....... This is my take on it which I put out there...............

This is where a SMS needs to look again at things and then decide what else, if anything, needs to be done. Part of my background is from Safety Engineering (where I was put through a SE MSc in the 1990's by my then employer) and processes such as Hazard Analysis takes into account both material failure as well as operational failure - and here we have "airspace design" and then the "operation of that airspace". When designing a bit of kit you apply the Regs as part of the design hazard analysis. But that is the minimum (tick VG) - after that we then ask "And is it actually safe?". Regs generally provide for a "minimum safe standard" which, all being well, will see us through - 100%. If not, we'd have aircraft falling out the sky with regular abandon! But that's assuming that those who write the Regs have got it right (or, in this case "designed the airspace" and then created the "operational rules" for that design). They can make mistakes as much as anyone else. One would hope for rigorous QA checks and so on ......... but this is where even organisations such as the FAA can, over time, become institutionalized with poor practices/cost cutting/etc/etc.

On an operational side of things, I've often, as an Engineer, reduced servicing intervals to less than those recommended where I've had issues with a bit of kit on a particular airframe*. I've released the aircraft back into service with an Engineering Limitation which has called for more frequent inspections than the Rules ask for while we try and ascertain what the issue is and if there really is a trend starting. If as an operator you believe something to be unsafe, you must address it. How did I know to reduce the servicing intervals? Sometimes it was a Maintenance Engineer calling me over and saying "Hey, Boss, have you seen this? What do you think?". Other times it's because trawling through Stats, a trend has started to show which, in the noise of day-to-day operations, was invisible - but look back over 6 months in a Spreadsheet and, hey, what have we here? We used to get regular print-outs from our Maintenance databases for just this reason - in the 1980's!

The FAA, in the wake of this accident I suspect, has issued this on the considerable extension of SMS's - but only in Apr 2024. But this is not new stuff - SMS's have been around for years. My first brush with it all was way back in 1980 - we called it something different then but that's what it was! Here in the UK, the CAA published CAP 795 - Safety Management Systems - Guidance to Organizations back in 2015, the purpose of which " .......... is to provide guidance on the implementation of Safety Management Systems (SMS). It has been developed to give sufficient understanding of SMS concepts and the development of management policies and processes to implement and maintain an effective SMS. It applies to Air Operator\x92s Certificate (AOC) holders, continuing airworthiness management organisations, maintenance organisations, air navigation service providers, aerodromes and approved training organisations. ".

Now, this is where you are absolutely spot on and is also what I said in my previous post - such additional "safety nets" will almost inevitably cost more so the Finance Director is none to keen. The usual "Operations/Engineering vs Finance" standoff.......! The long-debated issues at Boeing is also being blamed on exactly this over in "Rumours & News". What's that saying? "If you think safety is expensive, wait till you have an accident!".

Anyway, that's my take FWIW and hopefully it explains why I said what I did! Cheers, H 'n' H

WR 6-3 , again, my apologies and please rest assured my comment was very tongue-in-cheek hence my initial apology! That those who suffered from this tragic accident receive recompense as a very poor substitute to not still having their loved ones with them is absolutely essential! My comment was more along the lines that it looks like determining culpability will be quite convoluted...... hence the "lawyer" quip. If it came across as otherwise I, again, unreservedly apologise!

* Re increased servicing, even that has to be approached with care. In the late 1970's, we lost a helo when someone applied more grease then they should have as "....... well, a bit more will be even better!". Murphy's Law can be a right bu&&er!

The Wall Street Journal has published an intensely relevant piece reporting on the advocacy efforts - and the grief, and the resilience - of Tim and Sheri Lilley, the parents of Sam Lilley, the F/O of Bluestreak 5342.

Here is the headline and subheading:
"A Pilot\x92s Parents Work to Clear His Name After the Deadliest Crash in Decades
An American Airlines regional jet and an Army helicopter collided a year ago over the Potomac, creating unlikely friendships and advocates."
by-line, Christoper Kuo (Feb. 13, 2026 8:00 p.m. ET)

In several of the perhaps too-many posts (including a recent rant) I have written onto this thread, I have repeatedly made the point, or asked the question, who speaks for the pilots of Bluestreak 5342? Despite the WSJ reporting focusing on just the RHS pilot on the fateful night of 29 January 2025, I believe we now know that indeed, those blameless aviators indeed have a voice. In the safety ecosystem aftermath on Capitol Hill and before the eminences of the NTSB. And in the courtroom, I hope. Because although I have met a goodly number of very fine "aircraft crash litigation attorneys" on both sides of the adversarial barrier, I'm not recalling any whose advocacy resonates with such resolve as shown by these two grieving but determined parents. (No offense to the Gucci loafers or Clarence Darrow vests.)

If you've posted on this thread, or if you have just read it from time to time (or entirely) - go read about the parents of Bluestreak 5342's F/O, Tim and Sheri Lilley, please.
WillowRun 6-3

Thanks for posting this WR 6-3 , very moving text . One thing we aviation professionals do not always fully understand is how deep the emotions are by the grieving families after an accident . It runs strong for years , decades after the event , children and even grand chidden of victims are still maintaining alive the emotions 50, even 60 years after an accident . They never forget and nearly always cannot understand why we discuss this in theory, legal and technical terms that, in their views, is meant to be protecting or at best excusing the real culprits for the death of their loved ones.
I have unfortunately witnessed this almost all the time in the accidents I surveyed.

On the legal front , only in my home country, France , it always has been a disaster for the families , from the 1968 AF Caravelle shot down , the 1973 Iberia mid air collision in Nantes, the 1986 UTA DC10 bombing , the Concorde, or AF447 , every single time , it took well over 10 years to get a trial and every time the judgement was absolving , what the families saw as the real culprits, and the wounds are still open for them , decades later

Justice in the US is much faster , but I am not convinced the result will be better for the families. I hope for them I am wrong . Keep us posted WR 6-3.
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I agree. We don't acknowledege enough the grief of all the relatives and friends of the victims of an air accident. I lived very near the mother and father of Simon Ticehurst and saw at first hand what they went through after the Staines Trident accident. This was a particularly difficult event because of the acrinomy afterwards. We need to understand the waves of grief that spread out, often to many hundreds of people, after such an event.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britis...ays_Flight_548

I have some small insight into the grief of families in these situations.

One of my best school friends was on UTA 772 that was bombed over Niger in 1989, he was 36. We had learnt to fly together, I saw his first solo and he saw mine. We both worked in Africa in the 1980s but for different companies.

I knew his family well and I spent a fair bit of time with them after the accident and here are a few things I learnt:

Firstly, immediately after an accident the friends and relatives are desperate for information, first the What, then the Why. They will look anywhere and everywhere for this information. In this modern world this might well lead them here. When I post on this forum I am always conscious that some of the bereaved are most likely reading. If that is you then I hold you in the light. Getting clear, accurate, timely information to them can be a great comfort. Not everyone can comprehend an accident report or some technical aviation detail but they can if it is explained in a language they can understand so good posts on pprune can help. Consider it a service.

The second lesson for me was dealing with grief. I have been involved in several fatal (non-aviation) accidents and with the families of the victims. As an engineer by training I was taught, reinforced later by experience, that an objective approach is most likely to get to understand the cause and prevention of an accident. However that objective, dispassionate, disinterested approach completely ignores the very powerful emotions that can consume the surviving victims. It is all too easy use the objective facts as some kind of shield for yourself. I think that some recognition that grief can be a great help to the bereaved. The spectrum of grief is enormous and no two people deal with it in the same way.

Motivation: In my experience (and this seems to be the case with Tim and Sheri Lilley) is that some bereaved often have a powerful motivation to prevent this happening again. These people can help you advance your cause if you feel the same way.

A final lesson, and apologies to any lawyers here, is that most legal systems utterly fail to serve the victims or their bereaved. They are glacially slow, bureaucratic, wildly expensive, and polluted with politics. They usually serve the powerful at the expense of the weak (in the UK the NHS is the poster child for this). UTA 772 was one and there are many other aviation ones as ATC Watcher mentions. More examples would be Hillsborough, Grenfell Tower, Pan Am 103, Deepwater Horizon, and Piper Alpha, the list goes on and on.

There is a postscript to my story of UTA 772. My friend's body was never identified so it was nearly seven years later that his affairs could be settled. We then held a memorial service at our flying club (he had left some money in his will to the club). After the memorial his mother reached into her bag and handed me a camera. Apparently the French military would regularly visit the UTA 772 crash site where the shifting sands would often reveal new wreckage. They found some of his belongings, including this camera. Here is what it looked like having survived the bomb, falling from 35,000 feet and spending several years in the desert:




It was pretty beaten up but I could tell it had a film in it. With a specialist photo laboratory in London and help from Kodak's technical department we carefully processed the film. The negatives were pretty thin but there were definitely half a dozen images there. As the lab said "once we heard the story all of our printers wanted to have a go at getting some prints from this."

I remember the joy on his mothers face when she leafed through the prints and right near the end was a picture of her son. It must have been taken a few days before the crash and was certainly the last image of him alive.
Personally, I hate the word 'closure' in these situations as it implies that the grief ends at some point. It never does, all you can hope for is that day by day one manages it a little better. I think that photograph helped his mother to do this, if only a little.

Others weren't so lucky; her other son became obsessed with finding out what had happened to UTA 772, also with Pan Am 103 which had some obvious similarities. That obsession gradually descended into mania.

There is one lawsuit pending in federal district court in Washington, D.C. - although I am fairly certain that it is a consolidation of claims arising from the accident brought by some different groupings of plaintiffs represented, in each instance, by different attorneys. This imprecision of my knowledge of the actual litigation at present, for which I am making no excuses, is another reason why I will have to shift some attention away from other pursuits and spend some time reading court filings on the Pacer U.S. court systems web portal. More on the first reason, later. (And among my other pursuits is actual legal work, and it happens to be in the aerospace domain - transactional, not litigation, however.)

I want to draw three distinctions about the lawsuit arising from the accident. First, insofar as deriding (and mocking, and disliking or worse) the legal profession in general and particular individual lawyers is concerned, I will say in advance that I will shake my head in disbelief if anyone in this forum community believes that litigation against the U.S. federal government relating to this accident is improper or just about lawyers enriching themselves. Essentially every single post here, or at the very least every line of inquiry or analysis or interpretation of the facts as they have emerged, points a very straight finger of blame at the FAA's way of doing things.

Related to that, secondly, in my reference to the advocacy by the parents of Bluestreak 5342's F/O I was not trying to highlight their grief or the grieving process. The point was - and in my mind (capable of being derided because it sometimes is a legal mind to some extent) still is - that although obviously connected to their grief, these survivors also appear to be on a quest to exonerate the F/O's conduct on the final approach in question. I suppose I could hope to have learned more aviation history and be able to recite some, maybe most, of the significant previous accidents in which survivors of aviators, when those aviators were blamed for accidents in which they were killed, sought to clear their names. I don't think the instance of 5342's F/O's parents is unique. I do think it is very relevant to the impact, the implications, of the lawsuit and the Board's report. (More on this also later.)

Soon after the accident, I read about two young attorneys who were passengers on Bluestreak 5342. From memory, they were mid-level associates (maybe four or five years in practice, not yet partners in the firm) in a comparatively small law firm. They were returning to D.C. from taking depositions. I realize no one (or probably no one) on this forum who qualifies for the first Papa letter in the forum title will care much about the travails of young lawyers doing the equivalent of building hours. I will just say that it is hard work, and often far more thankless than digs at the legal profession would have a reasonable person conclude. And ..... I mention these two particular victims of the accident because I could - when I read that news report soon after 29 January - largely relate to where they were in their careers. Say what you will, and say it with as much vitriol as forum rules will allow - their deaths in the accident deserve their day in court, despite digs at lawyers and the profession. Discussion of what is wrong with the court system and the legal process in the United States - well, this isn't Scotus blog or something; that's all another subject. But: I maintain strongly that the attorneys who represent accident victims' families and other survivors of those victims have as much right to attack the responsible parties in court as attorney-bashers do to make fun of their profit motive. I haven't done that kind of legal work. I have met very fine, very excellent attorneys who do, and I think it behooves aviation professionals to recognize that bringing their clients' claims forward to that ultimate day in court is honorable, and necessary work. (This is not to defend jackpot justice awards, or bad-attorney behavior, as if I need to make that clear.)

Third, and the "first reason" I'll need to start eating more time on Pacer, is that I continue to believe that the aviators of Bluestreak 5342 are being taken advantage of by an otherwise respectable legal process. If one believes that they did nothing wrong, then why is it that their estates are not represented in the courtroom in order to defend them? Aren't they implied or implicit defendants, though obviously not named as such? And as I said in an earlier post, one could argue, 'well, the Army pilots aren't there to defend themselves, and they're getting pretty seriously wrung out as having primary responsibility - in addition to the systemic factors of course - and these three deceased U.S. Army aviators, they don't have an active defense in the courtroom either, do they? So why should the airline pilots have one?" Pretty simple answer: the U.S. federal government admitted liability, so the Army pilots - admittedly indirectly - have had their possible defense as pilots waived out from under them.

But since I haven't been delving into all the various court filings which by now presumably have piled up during pre-trial discovery, it is possible that the Bluestreak 5342 aviators' estates have retained their own counsel and are seeking to intervene in the case. I'll find out. Though I should apologize for repeating myself, and while admitting that intense study of intracacies of federal procedure was something I left behind when I picked up the J.D. (after all, reading Advisory Committee Notes about amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the Federal Rules of Evidence, it's fascinating stuff, amiright?), the gross unfairness of alleging negligence against the pilots who do not have their own legal representation in the case strikes me as an error and an injustice. And I am not a stranger to dealing with insurance carriers who want to settle, while the client wants to fight on - if the pilots' estates had separate representation, their lawyers would need to make sure their cowboy or hiking boots are on snuggly - the stuff to be thrown at them by the airline's corporate types and the insurance carrier attorneys who mostly call the shots, would seem likely to be intense.

Almost last, with mega-billions coming out of Congress for a totally new ATC system, it continues to seem obvious to yours truly that in designing it, and then doing all the many steps of implementing it, the lessons learned from the Board report will have a window of opportunity not usually present in the U.S. NAS. It should not go to the same fate of being ignored or shrugged off as so many Board reports have suffered. If the litigation - though of course separate from the Board work - creates leverage for such a beneficial outcome, I would say "Who wants it?" (with apologies to WSJ sportswriter extraordinaire, Jason Gay - about the U.S. Women's Hockey Team and the Wisconsin Badgers Women's Hockey Team as well). Or in less cryptic terms, Go fo It.

Last, Uberlingen. One of the Skyguide officials who was deeply involved with the aftermath of the accident delivered several presentations about it, most all of which went into some depth, during my academic residence at that certain Air and Space Law graduate law degree program located in Montreal, Quebec. Those presentations, as the old saying goes, "left a mark."

I suspect there are very few reading this thread who are not appalled at the suggestion of negligence on the part of the CRJ pilots.

We are going now a bit off topic , but there are indeed similarities between DCA and Uberlingen on how the families and lawyers react , and most likely how the judges will react in the end to find who are responsible and award damages to the families.
Lawyers represent both sides so sometimes it is shocking for us professionals who know the truth , confirmed by the official accident report to hear their arguments . .

In Uberlingen there were 13 holes in the cheese layer , any one of them closed and there would likely not have been an accident .For the judges to select only a few of them and concentrate on the person responsible for that hole is not what we, professionals would do , but this is how their system works. ,
Some of the holes were plain bad luck , but many others were man made. The BFU investigated and (tried to) explain all the holes, , the judges only a couple.

The similarities with DCA : on the accident itself , , for the controllers : normalization of deviance , being trained to do things which are not in the book .The judge will look at the book and say the controller did not follow the procedures . . Lawyers from the other side will be exploiting this loophole .
On the pilots : both the Russians and the Bluestreak did things not in their book either , for instance on reactions to TCAS alerts , or on accepting a procedure not briefed.. Lawyers are likely to exploits that as well.

We should not expect the truth coming from the legal system and even when the legal system brings out the truth in the end it does not necessary close the grief for the families . . Taking the Nantes Collison of 1973, , the final trial came 9 years after the event, and after major objections from the Government and the Military which tried to cover up the evidence. and had already delivered their version of the "facts: on the media and State television . .
Still today , 50 years later , the French Government and especially the Armeee de l'Air , still refuse the judgement conclusion ( saying that they are responsible for the collision ) , saying it was false , and still refuse to acknowledge the evidence . For the victim's families , mostly British and Spanish, the wound is still wide open as no-one was held responsible in the end , only "the State " in all its anonymity .