Jury Blames FAA, Small Plane Pilot for Cerritos Crash
In a decision that could cost the U.S. government millions of dollars, a Los Angeles jury Friday held the Federal Aviation Administration and the pilot of a small plane equally responsible for the 1986 collision of an Aeromexico DC-9 and a private aircraft over Cerritos that killed 82 people.
The jury’s unanimous verdict, later affirmed by a federal judge, absolved the Mexican carrier of any blame for the accident.
U.S. District Judge David V. Kenyon issued a strong rebuke to the FAA in agreeing with the jury’s findings, saying that the separation of aircraft and the prevention of collisions should be the top priorities of the nation’s air traffic controllers.
“It seems to me that if anything is to be learned from this terrible thing that happened . . .,” he said, “the regulations as to safety must be the first thing considered.
“This cannot happen again. This simply cannot happen again,” the judge added.
Not Enough Experience
Kenyon said the FAA was negligent for failing to advise the DC-9 that a small plane, piloted by William K. Kramer, 53, posed a danger to the jetliner. “It was simply a matter of a caring, diligent man, who did not have enough flying time, flying in what is probably one of the most difficult areas in the world to fly. . . . The situation simply got away from him,” the judge said.
No monetary damages were set Friday, but the decision will become the framework for trials or settlements in dozens of pending liability cases stemming from the crash. The total damages awarded in each of these cases is expected to reach into the tens of millions of dollars.
Because Kramer left an estate of only about $1 million, the bulk of the damages would be paid by the federal government, even though the FAA only got half of the blame.
Federal officials still may appeal Friday’s verdict.
During the 4 1/2-month trial, FAA officials were called to testify about an air traffic controller’s priority of duties. Visibility experts also were called in an attempt by the FAA to prove that the DC-9 crew and Kramer should have seen each other.
FAA officials argued that controller Walter White, who was guiding the jetliner on its approach to Los Angeles International Airport, was involved in other high-priority duties and could not have prevented the collision.
On the witness stand for a week last December, White, 37, testified that he did not see Kramer’s Piper Archer on his radar screen in the minutes before the collision on Aug. 31, 1986. He said he was traumatized by the accident.
“I was feeling a lot of sorrow, grief and empathy,” he said of the weeks following the midair collision.
Several aviation experts, however, cited data from FAA computers showing that the small plane was visible during 62 of 64 radar sweeps on White’s screen at the Los Angeles terminal radar approach control facility.
Kramer, an engineer who had moved to Rancho Palos Verdes from Spokane, Wash., was en route to Big Bear for the day with his wife, Kathleen, and daughter, Caroline, when his single-engine plane entered a zone of restricted airspace at 6,500 feet over Cerritos and collided with the DC-9. Fifteen people on the ground were among the 82 killed.
Aeromexico Flight 498 was on approach to LAX on the final leg of a trip that began in Mexico City when the small plane smashed into the DC-9’s tail section at 11:52 a.m., spewing fiery debris over the well-groomed middle-class neighborhood below. Five homes were destroyed and seven others were damaged by airplane wreckage.
More than 50 lawsuits seeking damages were filed against the FAA, Aeromexico and Kramer’s estate. Most of them were consolidated in the complex trial that went to the jury two weeks ago.
FAA officials would not speculate on how much the federal government might have to pay in damages from the tragedy, but some lawyers for the plaintiffs put the figure between $50 million and $100 million.
“There’s just no way to tell right now,” said attorney Joseph T. Cook, one of the lawyers who tried the case for the more than 100 claimants.
Although 50% of the liability was apportioned to Kramer, he left only $1.2 million in insurance and other assets, which would not come close to covering the damages being sought by relatives of the crash victims.
Aeromexico is limited by a 1929 treaty to damages of $75,000 for each of the 56 passengers who died in the collision. That leaves the FAA liable for the vast majority of damages.
It is not unusual for the FAA to share liability for a major airplane crash. FAA spokesman John Leyden estimated that “at any one time we have $40 billion in lawsuits pending against us. When people sue, they look for the deepest pockets.”
In 1987, for example, a federal court in Anchorage ordered the FAA to pay $4.5 million to a man who lost a leg when air traffic controllers mistakenly cleared a jet for a landing, causing the jet to hit the man’s truck on a runway.
Before Friday’s verdict, the most recent major loss by the FAA occurred in 1986, when a federal judge ordered the agency to pay half of the $23.7 million in damages resulting from the 1982 crash of a World Airways jet that killed two passengers during a landing in Boston during a snowstorm. A federal retrial of the case earlier this year cleared World Airways of all responsibility, leaving the FAA and Logan International Airport liable.
Another major case of liability, involving the crash of a Delta Air Lines flight at Dallas-Ft. Worth International Airport in 1985, which killed 137 people, is currently in recess in federal court in Ft. Worth, with testimony expected to resume Monday.
U.S. Justice Department lawyer Steven J. Riegel, who asked the jury to give Kramer 80% of the blame and Aeromexico 20%, said he was disappointed by the rulings.
Consider Judge’s Comments
Asked about the judge’s strong statements in rendering his rulings, Riegel said Kenyon’s comments would be carefully considered by FAA administrators.
“I wouldn’t call the judge’s comments an indictment,” he said.
Among the first to hail the verdict was the mother of Aeromexico’s first officer, Hector Valencia, who was flying the DC-9 when it collided with the small plane.
“We are all very happy and most grateful to the jury and the judge,” Victoria Valencia said from her Mexico City home. “They exonerated the pilots and the flight crew in this terrible tragedy. God bless them.”
While pleased about the jury’s verdict, one plaintiff’s attorney said panel members should have placed more blame on the FAA.
“I feel that the jury should have entered a verdict finding the government entirely or primarily responsible for the accident,” Century City attorney James J. McCarthy said.
“The government’s sole (responsibility) was to prevent the accident, to give a warning (to the DC-9). If they had given the warning, this accident would not have happened.”
Because Kramer left a small estate, the plaintiffs’ attorneys sought to put a large part of the responsibility on the FAA and zeroed in on whether White saw the Kramer plane on his radar screen before it collided with the jetliner.
“If the target (Kramer plane) was on the scope, the controller had a clear duty to call it (to Flight 498),” Aeromexico attorney Frank Silane said in final arguments two weeks ago. “He didn’t do it.”
He added that the crew of Aeromexico Flight 498 was “doing exactly what they were told to do” by White when the collision occurred.
Riegel said White was involved in other important duties, including guiding two other jetliners on approach to LAX, and could not have prevented the tragedy.
Riegel pointed out that Kramer flew into a restricted terminal control area (TCA) and did not identify himself to controllers.
‘He’s Only Human’
“White said he does believe it was not there, but having thought about it, realizes he’s only human with one pair of eyes,” he told the jury in final arguments. “His job required him to look at the (radar) keyboard (at times).”
But the jury didn’t agree with Riegel’s assessment.
“I believe that Kramer violated the TCA and the United States (the FAA) didn’t halt traffic,” said juror David Peterson of Whittier. “I think that’s what happened.
In making its decision after nearly 10 days of deliberations, the jury rejected the theory advanced by the attorneys for Kramer’s surviving children that he may have suffered a heart attack, thus causing his plane to stray into the restricted area.
“We thought about that for a long time,” said juror Valorie Mitzel of Anaheim Hills. “But we didn’t think it was strong enough to convince us.”
White, who was later promoted and now works as an FAA supervisor at the Santa Barbara airport, could not be reached for comment.
Times staff writer Bob Baker contributed to this article.
Cerritos after crash--The air crash neighborhood is restored, but some residents remain psychologically damaged. Metro, Page 1
