What Is Aviation Law?

Aviation law concerns flight, air travel and an airport or airline's liability to passengers and to those people who may be affected by the everyday business of the airport.

Airplane Accidents

There are several people involved in making sure that your plane takes off, flies and arrives safely. Sometimes these people do not do their jobs the best that they can and an accident occurs.

Some of the people who are responsible for you having a safe flight are the pilot, the mechanics, and the air traffic controllers. The air traffic controllers direct the planes throughout the whole flight and have information like weather conditions, the number of planes flying at the same time and other crucial information. The mechanics fix and maintain the plane and make sure everything is working properly before the plane takes off. The pilot, with the help of information he gets from the air traffic controller, flies the plane.

Standard of Care - Ordinary Care

Ordinary care is the standard that a regular person is expected to have when dealing with other people. Everyone is held accountable for an injury that happens to someone else because of his or her lack of "ordinary care".

• For example, if you are driving your car on the wrong side of the road and you hit someone, you did not use ordinary care in driving your vehicle on the road and you can be held responsible for the injuries that happen to that person.

The people who work for the airline also have a duty of care. Their duty of care is higher because they have special knowledge about their jobs that regular people do not have. Pilots, for example, may be held responsible for an accident that occurs when they fly the plane in an unsafe way or by doing something that they were not trained or licensed to do.

The people dealing with the airplane are responsible for the passengers' safety throughout the flight and if something goes wrong, may be held accountable for anything that goes wrong. If any of them did not do their job properly and an accident occurred, they would be held responsible for what happened and the airline that employed them may be held responsible to the people injured by their mistake.

• For example, if a plane crashes and an investigation shows that a mechanic didn't replace a missing screw and that caused the accident, that mechanic is responsible for the accident and can be held accountable.
• An air traffic controller can be held responsible for an accident between planes on the runway if he/she did not warn the pilots about the runway traffic.
• The companies that make planes may be liable for a plane accident if the company did not design something properly or manufacture the parts safely and correctly.

Who Is Responsible?

Because it is difficult to sue a person that works for an airline and collect the amount of money that you are trying to get, you can sue the airline itself. They are responsible for the accident just as much as the person who did not use ordinary care because the person was working for the airline at the time that he or she was negligent. That person is said to have been acting as an "agent" of the airline.

However, since an airplane accident is usually caused by various factors, you can sue a lot of different people and the jury will decide who is to blame for what and for how much.

Sometimes it is hard to figure out why an accident happened and who to blame for it. Sometimes there is no evidence that investigators can use to determine what went wrong and whose fault it was. In a lot of these cases it is likely that the courts will find that because of past knowledge of accidents like the present one, it could only have happened because of the negligence of someone.

• For example, if a plane crashes into a side of a mountain on a clear day and there is really no evidence left, based on evidence from past accidents the investigators may be able to determine that the plane ran out of gas or the pilot fell asleep.

Negligent Entrustment

Sometimes the owner of an aircraft can be held responsible for an accident if he or she knowingly let someone who was not able to fly the plane do so anyway, and an accident occurs. This is called "negligent entrustment". To prove this, you must show that the owner of the plane knew the person they allowed to fly the plane was not responsible enough or knowledgeable enough to fly the plane, such as knowing that the person had health problems that would make flying a plane difficult.

Living by an Airport

If you live near an airport you may be able to bring a case for the noise and vibrations caused by the planes flying in and out of the airport. But if the airport is within a permissible zone it may not be breaking any rules and you may not have a case. You should discuss this with an attorney before going further.

Airplane Passenger Complaints

An airline usually over-books flights because they know that people cancel and sometimes don't show up. However, if they have to ask people to give up their seats they must not discriminate and they must give the passenger giving up their seat something in return, usually a seat on another flight and a credit to use when buying a future ticket. You can refuse to accept what they are giving you and file suit. However, you should speak with a lawyer before taking any action.