News relating to Aviation Law

City lawyer has air crash win

Settlement amounts expected to average $US600,000

WRONGFULL death lawsuits filed in the United States by Toowoomba solicitor Mr Pat Nunan on behalf of families of 18 people killed in Indonesia's worst air disaster have been settled out of court.

Settlements amounts would vary but were expected to average $US600,000, Mr Nunan told the Chronicle from Chicago yesterday.

All 234 people on board Garuda Indonesia Flight GA-152 from Jakarta to Medan on September 26, 1997, were killed after the plane's wing struck a tree on a mountain ridge and crashed on landing approach.

Mr Nunan, of Toowoomba firm Cleary & Lee, specialises in aviation law and has represented survivors and victims' families in a number of aircraft accident cases.

He was in Chicago this week representing 18 Indonesian plaintiffs in an action brought by the Nolan Law Group in the United States District Court of Northern Illinois.

The action was files against the United States-based makers of a ground proximity warning system which had "failed to perform as represented and did not give the pilots a timely warning."

Mr Nunan said the system had inherent flaws in its design and therefore had failed to detect the rising terrain below the aircraft.

"The pilots made a heroic effort to save the lives of their passengers.

"They had just five seconds to save the plane and they almost made it over the ridge.

"It was the ground proximity warning system that failed, not the pilots," Mr Nunan said.

He will remain in Chicago to finalise the settlements.

"This (litigation) started in 1998, so it's been a long battle.

"It just goes to show, people from Toowoomba can do anything; geographic position means nothing these days," Mr Nunan said.

Source: The Chronicle (Toowoomba), Friday, September 26, 2003