An Airplane Accident Lawyer with Experience
A serious airplane accident can change a family’s life in a matter of seconds. Survivors may be facing major injuries, a long recovery, and questions they never expected to have to answer. Families who lose someone in a crash may be grieving while also trying to understand what happened and whether it could have been prevented.
Aviation cases can be especially difficult because the answer is rarely simple. A crash or serious in-flight event may involve decisions made by a pilot, aircraft owner, charter company, airline, maintenance provider, manufacturer, air traffic controller, or several of these parties at once. Important evidence may be buried in flight records, maintenance logs, weather data, aircraft components, and decisions made long before the accident itself.
Kane Personal Injury understands that these cases require careful investigation and a real understanding of aviation. Attorney Samuel Kane is a licensed commercial pilot with instrument and multi-engine ratings. That experience gives him a practical perspective on how aircraft operate, how pilots make decisions, and what questions need to be asked when something goes wrong.
If you or someone you love was seriously injured in an airplane accident, Kane Personal Injury can help investigate what happened, identify who may be responsible, and explain your legal options.
An Attorney Who Understands Aviation
Aviation cases have their own language, rules, records, and procedures. Understanding them matters.
A pilot may need to make decisions based on weather, fuel, aircraft performance, airport conditions, maintenance concerns, and changing conditions in the air. Maintenance records can reveal whether a problem developed over time. Flight information may show what was happening before an accident. Even a seemingly small detail can raise a much larger question about how a flight was planned or operated.
Samuel Kane brings a pilot’s perspective to that investigation.
That does not mean every accident is caused by pilot error. Quite the opposite. One of the most important parts of an aviation case is looking past the obvious explanation. A mechanical problem, improper maintenance, defective component, air traffic control issue, or decision made by an operator may have played an important role.
Kane Personal Injury can work with aviation, engineering, medical, and other experts when a case requires specialized knowledge. Samuel’s aviation background helps the firm understand the information those experts are evaluating and ask the right questions about what happened.
Aviation Accident Cases Require a Different Kind of Investigation
A car crash often begins with two vehicles, two drivers, and a roadway. An aviation accident can involve an entire system of people, equipment, procedures, and decisions.
Determining what happened may require looking at the aircraft itself, the people operating and maintaining it, flight planning, weather, air traffic control, airport conditions, and records created long before the accident.
That is why Kane approaches an aviation case as an investigation first.
An NTSB Investigation Is Only Part of the Picture
The National Transportation Safety Board investigates civil aviation accidents in the United States. Depending on the accident, investigators may examine the crash scene, aircraft wreckage, flight and maintenance records, weather information, interviews, and other evidence. The NTSB ultimately seeks to determine the facts, circumstances, and probable cause of an accident and make safety recommendations.
That investigation can provide important information, but its purpose is not to decide who owes an injured person or family compensation. The NTSB specifically does not assign legal fault or determine civil liability.
An injury case therefore asks additional questions.
Who had a legal responsibility to prevent the accident? Was that responsibility violated? Did more than one mistake contribute to what happened? What losses resulted from those failures?
There is another important distinction: federal law limits the use of an NTSB accident report itself in a civil action for damages, even though factual material gathered during an investigation may still be important to attorneys and experts evaluating a case.
Kane Personal Injury follows the official investigation while also examining the accident from the perspective of the injured person or surviving family.
More Than One Party May Be Responsible
An airplane accident does not always have a single cause. Depending on what happened, responsibility may involve a pilot or aircraft operator, an airline or charter company, an aircraft owner, a maintenance provider, an aircraft or component manufacturer, or another organization involved in the flight.
For example, a pilot may have struggled with a mechanical problem that should have been caught during maintenance. A component may have failed even though the aircraft was operated correctly. Poor weather alone may not explain an accident if questions remain about flight planning or the decision to continue a flight.
Kane looks at how those pieces fit together rather than stopping with the first apparent explanation.
Understanding What Went Wrong Is the First Step in the Case
No two aviation accidents happen in exactly the same way. Some involve a sudden equipment failure. Others develop from a series of smaller decisions or problems.
Issues that may need to be investigated include:
- Pilot error or poor decision-making
- Mechanical or equipment failure
- Improper aircraft maintenance
- Defective aircraft parts or design
- Air traffic control issues
- Runway or airport conditions
- Weather and visibility
- Fuel-related problems
- Communication failures
- Problems during takeoff, landing, or other phases of flight
An accident can also occur without the aircraft being destroyed. A hard landing, runway collision, loss of control, fire, or serious in-flight event may cause significant injuries even when everyone walks away from the aircraft.
The important question is not simply whether the airplane “crashed.” It is what happened, why it happened, and whether someone failed to meet a responsibility that could have prevented the injury.
The Evidence Can Be Highly Technical
Aviation cases can depend on evidence that most people never encounter in an ordinary personal injury claim.
Depending on the accident, an investigation may involve:
- Pilot and flight records
- Aircraft maintenance and inspection records
- Air traffic control communications
- Flight data
- Weather information
- Aircraft components and wreckage
- Airport or runway information
- Photographs and video
- Witness accounts
- Medical records
- Records from the aircraft owner or operator
- Analysis from aviation or engineering experts
The NTSB itself may gather flight logs, maintenance records, interviews, and other technical information while determining probable cause.
Kane Personal Injury looks at that evidence with a different question in mind: What does it tell us about responsibility for the injuries or death that resulted?
That can require understanding not only what happened in the final seconds of a flight, but what happened hours, days, or even months before it.
Kane Builds the Claim Around the Full Impact of the Accident
Finding the cause of an accident is only one part of an injury claim. Kane also works hard to understand what the accident changed for the injured person and family.
A serious aviation injury can lead to emergency treatment, surgery, rehabilitation, time away from work, or medical needs that continue for years. Some people may never return to the same job or level of independence they had before the accident.
Depending on the case and applicable law, compensation may address losses such as:
- Medical expenses
- Future medical and rehabilitation needs
- Lost wages
- Reduced future earning capacity
- Pain and suffering
- Long-term disability or limitations
- Other losses caused by the injury
The value of a case should reflect the person’s actual losses, not simply the medical bills that have arrived so far.
Dealing With Insurance Companies and Other Defendants
Aviation accidents may bring insurers, aircraft operators, manufacturers, and their attorneys into the case quickly.
An injured passenger or grieving family may still be trying to understand what happened when someone asks for a statement, documents, or a quick resolution.
Kane Personal Injury can handle those communications while investigating the claim. That gives the firm time to understand the injuries, evidence, and possible responsible parties before important decisions are made.
It also gives clients room to focus on something more immediate: their recovery and their family.
Frequently Asked Questions About Airplane Accident Claims
Talk With Kane Personal Injury About an Aviation Accident
Airplane accident cases can be technical, complicated, and overwhelming for the people involved. You should not have to figure out aircraft records, government investigations, insurance companies, and legal responsibility on your own.
Kane Personal Injury brings personal injury experience together with Samuel Kane’s firsthand knowledge of aviation as a licensed commercial pilot.
If you or someone you love was seriously injured or killed in an aviation accident, contact Kane Personal Injury for a free consultation. We can listen to what happened, review the circumstances, and explain what comes next.
