Private plane crash cases are complex and challenging. Private aircraft do not have the “black boxes” which commercial planes do. In addition, regulation and enforcement of maintenance and certification procedures are not nearly as rigorous for private aircraft as for commercial aircraft.

General aviation refers to all flights other than military and scheduled airline and cargo flights. The majority of air traffic in the United States falls into this category. Most of the airports in the United States, around 5,300, serve general aviation exclusively. According to the NTSB, in 2009 over twenty million flight hours were flown by general aviation aircraft such as private planes, business jets and chartered aircraft. In that same year, 1,474 accidents were reported involving general aviation aircraft.

Two major manufacturers produce most of the large commercial civilian aircraft flown today: Boeing in the United States, and Airbus in Europe. In the United States civil aviation incidents are investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). Families involved in air crashes are often astonished to learn that they or their representatives can have no role whatsoever in the crash investigation. Compounding this disadvantage of initial inaccessibility is that parties potentially responsible for the crash (who are usually the defendants) are invited by the NTSB to be party participants in the agency’s investigation.

The most common causes of private plane crashes include the following:

• Defective Design and/or Materials – Defects in this category can cause metal fatigue, cracking, and/or in-flight failure of critical components.

• In-Flight Instrument or Avionics Failure – Cockpit instruments such as attitude indicators, altimeters, and autopilots can fail in flight without warning, with catastrophic results to pilots and passengers.

• Negligent Maintenance or Repair – Maintenance records and log books are kept to record an aircraft’s maintenance history, and are an important part of any postcrash investigation.

• Pilot Error – A pilot’s failure to exercise due diligence can be a principle or partial cause of a crash

• Air Traffic Control Errors – Failure to follow proper air traffic control rules and procedures can lead to disaster.

• In-Flight Icing – Icing is a contributing or causal factor in numerous fatal aircraft crashes

• Fueling Errors – Fuel mismanagement such as starvation, exhaustion, or contamination often results in crashes

We would be honored to put our specific experience in these types of cases to work for your family. At such a difficult time, it is so important to have an airplane crash attorney you can trust to handle your case with the special professional care it deserves.

Call us toll free at (800)474-1339 or contact us by e-mail.