Your will...
...our expertise
In September 1999 a group of holidaymakers were involved in an air crash which happened at
Their aircraft crashed during a second attempt at landing in the middle of the night and in the midst of a violent electrical storm. The fuselage of the aircraft broke into three; its nose-wheel landing gear collapsed; its engines became detached; and what was left of it slewed off the runway and outside the airport perimeter.
Miraculously there was no loss of life (although tragically one passenger died a few days later). Most passengers regarded themselves as lucky to escape with relatively modest physical injuries, although a significant number developed demonstrable and long term psychiatric disorders – to include anxiety, depression, post traumatic stress disorder, and travel phobia.
One of the passengers approached us affronted by what he saw as a cheap attempt to buy him off in the resort. He wanted to know why they had been put in the position they were in and he wanted proper compensation for knee injuries suffered by his son during the crash.
We assisted in establishing a passengers group and from there we determined that passengers wanted access to counselling, answers to their questions about why the aircraft had crashed, assistance in handling an overwhelming media interest, representation in the air accident investigation, and appropriate compensation.
Although the Warsaw Convention of 1929 governs an air carrier’s liability in the event of an air accident – and in effect makes the air carrier strictly liable to passengers who suffer ‘bodily injury’ in an air accident – the passengers pursued their claim against their tour operator.
The tour operator’s liability was not governed by the Warsaw Convention (although it argued unsuccessfully that the terms of the Convention were incorporated into its standard holiday contracts) – it was governed by the law of contract.
Having obtained a group litigation order from the Court appointing us a Lead Solicitors for all 235 passengers across the
The litigation is a legal first since it is the only case (worldwide) where passengers involved in an air accident in which they suffered psychiatric injuries have been successful in recovering compensation for those injuries. The calculation of how you compensate a person who may never be able to fly again was also therefore a legal first!
In addition to securing compensation we assisted the passengers in addressing their obvious fear of flying by arranging a flight refamiliarisation programme put together with the help of counsellors and psychiatrists and culminating after several sessions in mock aircraft and in an actual flight.
We also assisted in ensuring the passengers interests were represented in the formal Air Accident Investigation and in liaising with Spanish and UK authorities in organising a formal report presentation, explanation and debrief seminar (a feature which the AAIB has indicated will be considered in future investigations).
Our team helped arrange counselling and cognitive behavioural therapy as well as physiotherapy and other rehabilitation where it was need. We helped passengers handle local, national and international media enquiries and with newsletters and group meetings we kept passengers informed and in touch with each other as a group pursuing common objectives.
The claims were conducted with the benefit of Certificates of Public Funding and ‘no win no fee’ agreements supported by after the event legal expenses insurance.
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