|
Singapore Airlines Flight 006 — Our Firm Retained By Five Surviving Passengers
The firm has been retained by five passengers who survived the October 31, 2000 Singapore Airlines Flight 006 in Taiwan. A Singapore Airlines Boeing 747-400 crashed after takeoff from Taiwan's Taoyuan International Airport. The airplane, bound for Los Angeles, carried 159 passengers and 20 crew.
The Singapore Airlines Flight 006 disaster raises several of the same legal issues the firm faced in the pending Korean Airlines Flight 801 litigation, arising out of the 1997 crash of a KAL Boeing 747 in Guam. There are also several legal issues unique to the Singapore crash.
Actions brought against an airline for death and injury on an international flight are ordinarily governed by the Warsaw Convention, a 1929 treaty signed by the vast majority of the world's nations. The Convention was recently supplemented by a series of formal agreements entered by many of the world's airlines based on the "Intercarrier Agreement" of the International Air Transport Association, known as IATA. Singapore Airlines signed those agreements and entered a formal tariff adopting the IATA scheme with the U.S. Department of Transportation in August 1998. As a result, Singapore Airlines waived the damage limitation of the Warsaw Convention and is liable for full compensatory damages for passenger death or injury in an accident, unless it shows that it took "all necessary measures" to avert the harm. The Convention, however, is regularly asserted by airlines as a bar to claims for punitive damages. Also, the Convention establishes strict jurisdictional requirements that limit where a lawsuit can be brought.
It is important to note that the Warsaw Convention and the supplemental IATA agreements may not apply to some passengers in the Singapore Airlines disaster. That is because Taiwan never signed the Warsaw Convention and there is recent appellate case law holding that China's adherence to the Warsaw Convention does not bind Taiwan. The Convention only applies to passengers whose travel itinerary began and was scheduled to end in a country that signed the Warsaw Convention. A passenger traveling on a round trip ticket from the United States would be subject to the Convention because the passenger's travel began and was to end in the United States, a Warsaw signatory. On the other hand, a claim involving any passenger whose travel itinerary began or ended in Taiwan would probably not be governed by the Warsaw Convention.
Whether the Warsaw Convention applies to a particular passenger's case must be determined by a careful review of the passenger's travel plans. In addition, there may be other non-airline entities which are legally responsible for the crash. Claims against such non-airline entities may raise complex issues of jurisdiction and proof. Passengers or their surviving families should confer with an attorney with experience in handling international airline disasters to determine their legal rights.
The potential application of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) presents another challenge. The FSIA may be asserted in this case since the Singapore government reportedly owns a majority share of the airline. The FSIA bars the recovery of punitive damages. In addition, the FSIA requires that the case be tried to a judge, rather than a jury.
Our firm is presently evaluating both factual and legal arguments which can be made to overcome the existing legal impediments to obtaining punitive damages in these cases.
Kreindler & Kreindler LLP currently represents families of passengers killed in the December 1997 crash of a Boeing 737 operated by Silk Air, a subsidiary of Singapore Airlines. The firm recently won a major ruling to keep that case in the United States federal court in Seattle, Washington. See Silk Air Flight 185.
Partners Frank Fleming, Blanca Rodriguez and Brian Alexander are handling the Singapore Airlines Flight 006 disaster cases for the firm.
|
