Jet Passengers Sue Over In-Flight Emergency

Six passengers on an Alaska Airlines jet that suddenly lost pressure when a hole opened in its fuselage sued the airline and its baggage handlers Friday.

No one was seriously hurt when a 12-inch gash split the fuselage on the Dec. 26 flight from Seattle to Burbank. But James P. Kreindler, an attorney for the passengers, said in a statement that his clients’ “lives are profoundly challenged by what they thought was their near-death experiences.... Passengers were saying their last goodbyes to loved ones.”

One legal expert said there are strict criteria for winning damages for emotional trauma. Plaintiffs must establish that the airline was negligent and that there was some physical injury or risk of injury. The lawsuit contends that the passengers’ hearing was damaged and that Alaska Airlines and its contractor did not properly handle an incident before takeoff in which a baggage cart struck the plane.

“Generally speaking, if the only damage one suffers is by watching some event unfold, you ordinarily are not able to get recovery for that,” said Loyola Law School professor John Nockleby, a tort law expert.

The firm representing the plaintiffs said it won damages from American Airlines over a 1995 incident in which passengers experienced 30 seconds of severe turbulence over Minnesota.

The plaintiffs, including Los Angeles residents Mark Reveley and Emma Hellsten and four others who live in Sweden, seek damages to be determined at trial. The suit was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court.

The incident occurred 20 minutes after the aircraft left Seattle. Oxygen masks dropped and passengers reported a loud, popping sound followed by a rushing noise one compared to “a leaf blower in your ear.” Pilots descended suddenly from 26,000 feet and returned to Seattle.

Prior to takeoff, a baggage handler bumped the plane with his loading cart, apparently damaging the aircraft. The hole in the fuselage measured 12 inches by 6 inches, and was near the forward cargo door, about 4 feet below the cabin windows.

The incident elevated tensions between Seattle-based Alaska Airlines and its unions. The airline had cut baggage and ramp service jobs earlier in 2005, and hired British-based Menzies Aviation to take up the work at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

The baggage handler whose cart struck the plane worked for Menzies. After the incident, union advocates suggested that the problem was caused by poor work by the contractor. The passengers’ lawyers raised the same issue in naming Menzies in the suit.

“Alaska Air should have known that Menzies was not competently handling its ground service responsibilities, and yet it continued to use the company to perform those services,” Daniel O. Rose, another attorney for the plaintiffs, said in a statement.

Menzies spokesman David Marriott said the company had not seen the lawsuit and could not comment.