FrugalFlyerv2.0
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- Oct 29, 2003
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Below is the story from the Toronto Star.
The article does not mention anything about Air Transat's maintenance procedures which lead to the fuel leak. IIRC, there was a story that the Transport Canada was investigating /or fined Air Transat for 'sketchy' maintenance procedures.
The settlement works out to roughly 100X the price of the ticket (based on some of the ads I've seen for Air Transat fares to Europe and before lawyers get paid ofcourse).
________________________
Toronto Star - March 2, 2005
Airline offers $7.65M payout after fuel runs out
Plane ran out of fuel over Atlantic
175 passengers to share settlement
PHILIP MASCOLL
STAFF REPORTER
More than half the passengers on an Air Transat flight between Toronto and Portugal that glided to safety after it ran out of fuel will share $7.65 million, lawyers say.
A court is expected next month to approve the settlement announced yesterday.
It will also decide how to divide the settlement among the 175 passengers who filed a class-action suit.
Toronto lawyer Mark Mason said the proceeds to passengers and their families, legal fees and administrative costs would all be decided at a hearing scheduled for April 25.
"In terms of distribution, it is anticipated that it will at least be more than Air Transat originally offered each passenger," Mason said.
The airline had originally offered in the region of $8,800 per passenger.
Yesterday's settlement works out to more than $40,000 for each of the 175 passengers.
This settlement, negotiated jointly by Mason's firm and a Vancouver law firm, will apply to 175 of the 297 passengers on Air Transat 236 who did not take the earlier offer.
Officials at Air Transat could not be reached for comment.
A report released in October blamed Captain Robert Piche for not recognizing that the A-330 Airbus had developed a fuel leak over the Atlantic in 2001.
There were 303 people on board the aircraft which glided for 19 minutes.
The report found a string of human errors exacerbated a catastrophic fuel leak on the A-330 Airbus over the Atlantic Ocean.
The report said that if Piche and his first officer, Dirk De Jager, had followed procedures and recognized clues their fuel was spewing into the air during their aircraft's flight, they would have been able to shut down one engine and then land at the Azores' Lajez airport with fuel to spare.
Instead, after carrying out an important safety procedure "by memory" and then mistakenly sending their remaining fuel to the leak tank, the jet ran out of fuel, forcing it into a 19-minute "engines out" glide toward the island.
Most of the aircraft's tires were blown by the force of the landing, which resulted in 11 injuries, none of them serious.
"The crew did not correctly evaluate the situation before taking action," concluded the 103-page report that was written by the Portuguese Aviation Accidents Investigation Department.
"The flight crew did not recognize that a fuel leak situation existed," it added.
The article does not mention anything about Air Transat's maintenance procedures which lead to the fuel leak. IIRC, there was a story that the Transport Canada was investigating /or fined Air Transat for 'sketchy' maintenance procedures.
The settlement works out to roughly 100X the price of the ticket (based on some of the ads I've seen for Air Transat fares to Europe and before lawyers get paid ofcourse).
________________________
Toronto Star - March 2, 2005
Airline offers $7.65M payout after fuel runs out
Plane ran out of fuel over Atlantic
175 passengers to share settlement
PHILIP MASCOLL
STAFF REPORTER
More than half the passengers on an Air Transat flight between Toronto and Portugal that glided to safety after it ran out of fuel will share $7.65 million, lawyers say.
A court is expected next month to approve the settlement announced yesterday.
It will also decide how to divide the settlement among the 175 passengers who filed a class-action suit.
Toronto lawyer Mark Mason said the proceeds to passengers and their families, legal fees and administrative costs would all be decided at a hearing scheduled for April 25.
"In terms of distribution, it is anticipated that it will at least be more than Air Transat originally offered each passenger," Mason said.
The airline had originally offered in the region of $8,800 per passenger.
Yesterday's settlement works out to more than $40,000 for each of the 175 passengers.
This settlement, negotiated jointly by Mason's firm and a Vancouver law firm, will apply to 175 of the 297 passengers on Air Transat 236 who did not take the earlier offer.
Officials at Air Transat could not be reached for comment.
A report released in October blamed Captain Robert Piche for not recognizing that the A-330 Airbus had developed a fuel leak over the Atlantic in 2001.
There were 303 people on board the aircraft which glided for 19 minutes.
The report found a string of human errors exacerbated a catastrophic fuel leak on the A-330 Airbus over the Atlantic Ocean.
The report said that if Piche and his first officer, Dirk De Jager, had followed procedures and recognized clues their fuel was spewing into the air during their aircraft's flight, they would have been able to shut down one engine and then land at the Azores' Lajez airport with fuel to spare.
Instead, after carrying out an important safety procedure "by memory" and then mistakenly sending their remaining fuel to the leak tank, the jet ran out of fuel, forcing it into a 19-minute "engines out" glide toward the island.
Most of the aircraft's tires were blown by the force of the landing, which resulted in 11 injuries, none of them serious.
"The crew did not correctly evaluate the situation before taking action," concluded the 103-page report that was written by the Portuguese Aviation Accidents Investigation Department.
"The flight crew did not recognize that a fuel leak situation existed," it added.
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