Lawyers Go After FAA in Fatal Aeroflot Nord Crash

Air Safety Week, Oct 20, 2008

Nolan Law Group and Ribbeck Law Chartered have filed a Petition for Discovery in the state court in Chicago arising from the Aeroflot-Nord Boeing 737 crash in Perm, Russia on September 14, 2008.

The jetliner went down in the Ural Mountains killing all 88 people on board. The Boeing-737 crashed as it attempted to land in Perm. An engine fire appears to have caused the crash, according to investigators. The right engine of the Boeing 737-500 apparently caught fire as the plane was preparing to land, said the chief of Russia's federal Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, who is in charge of the crash probe. Flight 821, which had departed Moscow, carried 82 passengers and six crew members.

The petition was filed on behalf of Aleksey A. Afanasenkov, Sr., whose son perished in the crash. It seeks documentation and information concerning the individuals or companies that may be responsible for causing the crash.

Additionally, the law firms asserted a formal claim on behalf of Mr. Afanasenkov against the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) "for its failure to properly regulate U.S. training institutions which provided training to the crew of the accident airplane."

They said the US-Russian treaty entitled "Agreement Between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Russian Federation for the Promotion of Aviation Safety" entered into force on Sept. 2, 1998.

Under the treaty, the U.S. government agreed that the FAA would monitor, among other things, aviation training establishments in the United States providing training to Russian pilots in accordance with the standards, rules, practices, general procedures and Implementation Procedures established pursuant to the treaty.

"While the investigation of the crash is ongoing and no probable cause determinations have yet been made, the circumstances of the crash have highlighted the dangerous shortcomings in the training of pilots accustomed to Eastern-built aircraft transitioning into operation of Western-built airliners. It further highlights the need for proper oversight in the FAA airworthiness certification process of transport category airplanes," the laws firms assert.

It was previously reported by Aeroflot-Nord that the captain of the accident airplane received training in the 737-500 at a U.S. based training institution in 2006, and had 452 hours as pilot-in-command of this model airplane. The first officer began flying the 737-500 airplane earlier this year and had only 219 total hours in the model airplane.

Both pilots had spent the majority of their careers operating Russian- built aircraft, which have some significant technical differences in cockpit instrumentation from Western-built aircraft such as the Boeing 737.

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