If you or a loved one have been seriously injured in a helicopter crash then call us for a Free Initial Consultation. Talk to a Board Certified Personal Injury Trial Lawyer in Texas with over 20 years of personal injury and wrongful death lawsuit experience. Know your rights under the law. Call to find out your rights to a personal injury claim, wrongful death lawsuit or other legal action. Call Now or E-mail us.
NO FEES OR EXPENSES CHARGED UNLESS WE RECOVERY FOR YOU !!

(Contact a Lawyer Now)

Call Toll Free
1-800-883-9858

BOARD
CERTIFIED
TRIAL LAWYER

If you have been injured, Talk to a Board Certified Personal Injury Trial Lawyer, certified by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization since 1988. It cost you nothing to discuss your case or ask a question to a Board Certified Personal Injury Attorney in Texas. No Fees or Court Costs or Expenses charged to the client unless we obtain a recovery. (Contact A Board
Certified Trial Lawyer)

Call Toll Free
1-800-883-9858

What are the common causes of helicopter crash accidents ? These include an inexperienced helicopter pilot, poorly trained helicopter mechanics, negligent operation of the helicopter, poor weather conditions, operating with excessive loads, negligent maintenance, excessive hours on the turbine, engine, main rotor head, tail rotor, driveshaft, rotor gear box, intermediate gear box, or tail rotor gear box, worn or overloaded cam shaft & crankshaft, repeated over speed of engine resulting in valve seat failure, failure of splines on the drive shaft and water contamination in the fuel.

Other sources of helicopter accidents may be a helicopter owner's failure to properly address concerns in airworthiness directives, the helicopter pilots failure to place the craft into an autorotation, fuel exhaustion, failure to maintain control during autorotation, inadequate service bulletin warnings, improper use of the collective, inadequate communication / coordination between the flight crew and ground personnel, failure to properly react to a loss of engine power or in flight loss of power, failure to follow flight plan, loss of tail rotor control, loss of directional control, failure to maintain adequate main rotor rpm, flight engineer's inadequate visual lookout, improper use of the rotorcraft cyclic control and pilot's failure to obtain a preflight weather briefing.

In a helicopter crash lawsuit, who are the defendants that are brought into a helicopter crash negligence & products liability cases ? The best answer is, all responsible parties which can include the helicopter owner, helicopter operator, charter service, contractor, helicopter engine rebuilder, parts manufacturer, mechanics, and others that are determined to caused or contributed to the helicopter crash. Litigation involving helicopter crash injuries and deaths have include crashes of a weather helicopter, traffic report helicopter, radio / television station helicopter, medical helicopter, EMS helicopter, news helicopter, offshore helicopter charter service to oil rig platforms and ships, tour helicopters for sightseeing, search & rescue helicopter, ER helicopter, transport helicopter, and certain military helicopters.

The National Transportation Safety Board is an independent Federal agency charged by Congress with investigating every civil aviation accident in the United States and significant accidents in the other modes of transportation -- railroad, highway, marine and pipeline -- and issuing safety recommendations aimed at preventing future accidents. The Safety Board determines the probable cause of :

• all U.S. civil aviation accidents and certain public-use aircraft accidents;
• selected highway accidents;
• railroad accidents involving passenger trains or any train accident that results in at least one fatality or major property damage;
• major marine accidents and any marine accident involving a public and a nonpublic vessel;
• pipeline accidents involving a fatality or substantial property damage;
• releases of hazardous materials in all forms of transportation; and
• selected transportation accidents that involve problems of a recurring nature.

The rules of the Board are located in Chapter VIII, Title 49 of the Code of Federal Regulations. The NTSB investigates and reports on all U.S. air carrier accidents, commuter and air taxi crashes, mid-air collisions, serious mishaps involving public use (government) aircraft and all fatal general aviation accidents. The NTSB also investigates accidents involving both civilian and military aircraft and crashes involving military aircraft where the functions of the FAA are at issue. Internationally, the NTSB investigates major accidents involving U.S. air carriers and U.S. manufactured airliners under the auspices of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

The Probable Cause determination of the NTSB is not based on "evidence." The determination of proximate cause in a civil liability trial must be based on competent evidence. The NTSB may consider matters in reaching the probable cause determination, which could be excluded from evidence in civil litigation, because hundreds of years of jurisprudence has taught us that certain information is unreliable.Field investigations result in a factual report, from which the investigator recommends a probable cause determination to the Board. The Board then reviews field investigation reports and votes to adopt, reject or modify the probable cause determination recommended by a Field Investigator. When the NTSB approves a Field Investigator's Factual Report, their probable cause determination along with a summary of the relevant facts is published on a quarterly basis. You can find all such accidents by date and location in "Briefs of Accident" in the public dockets section of NTSB Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Major accident investigations led by NTSB "Go Teams" are more heavily documented. Each group chairman prepares a report and submits it to the Investigator In Charge. The Investigator In Charge in turn, prepares a draft NTSB Report and submits it to the Board for review. The Board in major airline disaster cases, and other accidents of great public interest, may conduct public hearings wherein witnesses are called and interrogated.

NTSB probable cause determinations are not admissible in evidence [49 USC 1441(e)]. Private litigants must prove the cause of the crash to a jury without the benefit of the conclusions of the NTSB accident investigations. Many courts have allowed the Field Investigator's "Factual Report" into evidence and some courts have allowed the jury to read the NTSB "Blue Cover" Report. However, federal courts have begun to follow 49 USC 1441(e) "literally." and have simply refused to allow the NTSB Blue Cover Report into evidence in airline disaster litigation (Sioux City United Airlines DC-10 Disaster.) There is support for this caution because the Blue Cover Report of the Board often has factual findings intertwined with opinion and analysis such that it would be very difficult for a Judge to extract purely factual information that will have meaning for the jury.

Anyone can order a NTSB report by contacting the National Transportation Safety Board at  www.NTSB.gov or calling the NTSB office in Washington D.C. at (202) 314-6000 The following NTSB reports will help illustrate the complexity of a NTSB accident investigation report. NTSB Accident Report of  Air Midwest Flight 5481 (January 8, 2003); American Airlines Flight 587 November 12, 2001; Alaska Airlines Flight 261 January 31, 2000; EgyptAir Flight 990 October 31, 1999; Aberdeen, South Dakota (Payne Stewart accident) October 25, 1999; AA Flight 1420 June 1, 1999;  Korean Air Flight 801 August 6, 1997;and TWA Flight 800 July 17, 1996.

LEGAL ASSISTANCE FOR AVIATION ACCIDENT VICTIMS

If you or a loved one was seriously injured or killed in an aviation accident then you may have a right to file a lawsuit against all responsible parties. Due to the serious nature of these aircraft accidents,crash victims and their families should consult with an experienced attorney as soon as possible. A detailed aviation crash investigation is essential to success. Call us for a Free Confidential Consultation. No Attorneys Fees or Expenses Charged to Client unless a recovery is made for you. Also feel free to call us if you need help in finding a current NTSB accident report. Call Us Toll Free - Free Case Evaluation 1-800-883-9858 or 1-800-468-4878  or E-Mail Us

Mr. Willis is Board Certified in Personal Injury Trial Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization.

home :: about the firm :: why they crash :: crash investigation
NTSB crash report :: bell helicopter crashes :: sikorsky helicopter crashes
eurocopter crashes :: military helicopter crashes :: other helicopter crashes
firm background :: turbomeca crashes :: air ambulance crashes
helicopter terms :: aviation accidents :: helicopter manufacturers
contact us