American Airlines Flight 1420 - Legal Issues

Legal Issues

Multiple lawsuits were filed after the crash and on December 15, 1999, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation consolidated the various federal lawsuits over the crash for consolidated and coordinated pretrial proceedings and assigned the case to the late United States District Court Senior Judge Henry Woods of the Eastern District of Arkansas. In the lawsuits the passengers sought compensatory and punitive damages from American Airlines.

From the beginning Judge Woods separated the passenger cases into two groups: domestic and international passengers, because different laws governed the rights of the claimants in each category. For example, passengers traveling on international tickets were prohibited by an international treaty (The Warsaw Convention) from recovering punitive damages. Therefore, Judge Woods ruled only the domestic passengers would be permitted to pursue punitive damages claims.

Meanwhile, the National Transportation Safety Board ruled the probable cause of the crash was: "The flight crew's failure to discontinue the approach when severe thunderstorms and their associated hazards to flight operations had moved into the airport area and the crew's failure to ensure that the spoilers had extended after touchdown. Contributing to the accident were the flight crew's (1) impaired performance resulting from fatigue and the situational stress associated with the intent to land under the circumstances, (2) continuation of the approach to a landing when the company's maximum crosswind component was exceeded, and (3) use of reverse thrust greater than 1.3 engine pressure ratio after landing."

The compensatory damages claims proceeded first. American Airlines "admitted liability for the crash and individual trials were scheduled to assess the proper amount of compensatory damages. Thereafter American Airlines reached settlement agreements with a majority of the domestic Plaintiffs."

"Three compensatory damages trials involving domestic Plaintiffs were ultimately tried to a jury and awards of $ 5.7 million, $ 3.4 million and $ 4.2 million were made." These three Plaintiffs pursued but ultimately lost their claims for punitive damages. The District Court granted summary judgment in American Airlines' favor on punitive damages, finding under Arkansas law the evidence was insufficient to submit the issue to a jury to decide. This ruling was later upheld on appeal.

In upholding summary judgment for American Airlines on punitive damages the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit explained:

We agree with the district court that the only conduct that might support an award of punitive damages was that of Captain Buschmann and First Officer Origel in the last sixteen minutes of the flight, that is, their conduct beginning with the decision to continue the approach into Little Rock after the air traffic controller there confirmed that a thunderstorm had hit the airport. Before then, the flight crew, having notice of the possible inclement weather in Little Rock, took an uncontroversial "wait-and-see" attitude to landing, having the ability at any time to divert the aircraft's course to Nashville or another alternate location. The decision to take off, and the conduct during the flight up to this time, cannot reasonably be deemed negligent, let alone sufficiently reckless to justify a punitive damages award.

The parties dispute whether the evidence is such that a reasonable jury could find that the disposition or mental state of one or both members of the flight crew had a degree of willfulness, wantonness, or conscious indifference to the risk that the crew would crash the aircraft due to the inclement weather sufficient to allow an inference of malice. American Airlines contends that, because the crash would not have occurred had the spoilers been activated, the proper inquiry is whether the failure to deploy the spoilers was itself the product of the type of mental state justifying punitive damages. The PSC, however, contends that this inquiry is too narrow, and that the decision to proceed with the landing in inclement weather was itself a proximate cause of the crash because the events leading up to the crash were cumulative in nature. According to the PSC's theory, a reasonable jury could find that the flight crew neglected to deploy the spoilers because they became distracted and had too much to do as a result of their egregious decision to land the aircraft in the inclement weather.

The evidence provides no clear explanation for why the flight crew failed to deploy the spoilers. We agree with the PSC, though, that a reasonable jury could find that the flight crew's decision to land the plane during conditions of high winds and low visibility led to a situation in which they were distracted from deploying the spoilers. "Causation is ordinarily a fact question for the jury to decide," Arthur v. Zearley, 337 Ark. 125, 135, 992 S.W.2d 67, 73 (1999), and a reasonable jury could find that the proximate cause of the failure to deploy the spoilers (and thus the crash) was the decision to land the plane during bad weather. Thus, the punitive damages claim should be submitted to a jury if there is evidence from which a reasonable jury could conclude that the flight crew's decision to land the aircraft satisfied the requirements for awarding punitive damages. Our reading of the record leads us to conclude that it will not support that conclusion.

In the only liability trial arising out of the crash of flight 1420, a federal jury in Little Rock awarded Captain Buschmann's family $2 million in wrongful death damages in a lawsuit they filed against the Little Rock National Airport. The jury decided Captain Buschmann's death occurred because the aircraft collided with illegal non-frangible approach light supports erected in what should have been the Runway Safety Area. It was concluded that Little Rock National Airport failed to comply with airport safety standards. The Captain's estate presented evidence the spoilers were deployed and malfunctioned (not the captain's fault), and that the aircraft was not in turbulence. The jury rejected the airport's argument that Captain Buschmann was at fault in causing his own death.

It has been stated the jury verdict completely absolved Captain Buschmann of all fault for the crash. However, 1) the National Transportation Safety Board has not changed its probable cause ruling and 2) American Airlines admitted liability for the crash and "paid many millions of dollars in damages to the passengers and their families."

According to a comment made about 10 years after the crash by David Rapoport, a lawyer who was a member of the PSC, "after all these years is still a matter reasonable people who are fully informed may disagree on", however, there should be consensus "flight operations should not be conducted in the terminal area when thunderstorms are on the flight path; and non-frangible objects should not be placed where it is foreseeable an aircraft may go."