Thursday, February 2, 2012

Criminal Accidents?

"Is a crash a crime?" was the title of a recent article relating to the current criminal prosecution of a pilot who crashed his private plane in Massachusetts on New Year's Day 2011.  He is accused of involuntary manslaughter.  His victim — his daughter.  She died in the accident.

The pilot was flying a fixed-wing, Cessna airplane without sufficient experience or licensure, evidence of "wanton or reckless conduct," prosecutors say.  "[The pilot] was neither licensed nor qualified to fly that twin-engine plane without an instructor on board, and he was repeatedly warned as such, yet he nevertheless chose to fly the plane at night with a passenger on board without his instructor's knowledge or approval."

If convicted, the pilot faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in state prison and up to 2.5 years in county jail. 

All this raises serious questions about the end achieved by criminalizing aviation disasters in contexts that do not involve terrorism.

 The tragic accident of the Concorde on July 25 2000, seemingly was the first domino to fall in this context.
 

As reported, "a 2002 report by French air accident investigators concluded that a small strip of metal that fell off a Continental DC-10 that took off minutes earlier punctured a tire of the Concorde ...  A French court ordered Continental to pay civil damages of more than $1.3 million to Air France and a fine of $265,000. The mechanic was fined $2,650 and given a suspended 15-month prison sentence." 

Debate on the matter is not likely to be resolved soon, as the Massachusetts tragedy is the latest of a curious trend towards taking aviation accident law outside the realm of negligence.

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