When air traffic is out of control: some of the most dramatic aviation accidents in recent years have resulted from air traffic controller error. When handling crash litigation, use these tips to recognize the negligence and confront common defenses.

An airliner crashes into a mountain while landing. A private plane flies into a heavy thunderstorm and disappears from radar. A commuter plane takes off from the wrong runway and crashes. Two jets collide at 37,000 feet. (1)

Each of these incidents was a result of air traffic controller error. Given that controllers are in some way involved in every flight here and abroad, attorneys representing crash victims or their families must investigate not only possible pilot negligence, faulty maintenance, and defective aircraft design, but also possible mistakes in how air traffic controllers handled the aircraft.

The air traffic control system regulates the movement of aircraft to provide safe passage. Air travel is regulated and controlled by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and aircraft are subject to the direct control of FAA employees. Therefore, the United States is subject to suit for the negligence of government air traffic controllers who proximately cause a crash. (2)

Threats to aircraft come from three sources: obstacles, weather, and emergencies. To address these threats, the FAA has devised a system of airways and sectors to enable air traffic controllers to monitor and direct flights. Airways are imaginary paths that aircraft follow. Sectors are geographic areas with horizontal and vertical boundaries. Controllers use both to keep aircraft at certain distances from each other and away from mountains, buildings, towers, and other obstacles by instructing aircraft to climb, descend, change course, change speed, or hold position. The tools available to control aircraft are radio contact, radar, and, to a lesser extent, visual observation.

Aircraft enter a controller's area of responsibility by contacting a controller while on the ground, by activating a flight plan, or when a controller hands off an aircraft to another controller. A ground controller is usually located in a tower and directs traffic on the ground at an airport. A radar, or line, controller is usually in a Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) facility. These controllers are often not in a tower and might be off the airport property; they control traffic not only at major airports but also at all smaller airports within their areas.

Radar controllers are specialists who direct traffic flying to or from a major airport, by controlling planes approaching for a landing, departing from a takeoff, or overflying the terminal area. In addition, en route controllers at an air route traffic control center control aircraft between terminal areas. And remote controllers provide ground, takeoff, and landing clearances at small airports whose towers are often operated by private contractors.

Each of these various controllers may have control of a plane entering, leaving, or flying to an area within the controller's sector of responsibility. Each controller is expected to cooperate with the others in passing aircraft and information to one another as a flight progresses. An aircraft may occasionally be under the control of more than one controller at the same time.

Tools of the trade

Specific regulations and procedures govern how aircraft are piloted. The two that are most commonly used are called Visual Flight Rules (VFR) and Instrument Flight Rules (IFR). A pilot operating under VFR--in clear weather--controls the aircraft according to visual references outside the cockpit. While air traffic controllers have some responsibility to an aircraft flying under VFR conditions, "the primary responsibility for safe operation of the aircraft rests with the pilot, regardless of traffic clearance." (3)

Under IFR, an aircraft's course, speed, altitude, and distance from other aircraft or obstacles are maintained by reference to instruments. Aircraft flying according to IFR--which include almost all commercial flights--are under the primary direction and control of air traffic controllers.

FAA Order 7110.65 is the bible of air traffic control. (4) It spells out the duties, procedures, and methods controllers are to follow. Two sections of the order state their primary responsibilities:

2-1-2. Duty Priority

a. Give first priority to separating aircraft and issuing safety alerts as required in this order. Good judgment shall be used in prioritizing all other provisions of this order based on the requirements of the situation at hand.

b. Provide additional services to the extent possible, contingent only upon higher priority duties and other factors including limitations of radar, volume of traffic, frequency congestion, and workload.

That section of the order is linked to the following section:

2-1-6. Safety Alert

Issue a safety alert to an aircraft if you are aware the aircraft is in a position/altitude which, in your judgment, places it in unsafe proximity to terrain, obstructions, or other aircraft.

In general terms, virtually every other duty of air traffic control derives from these two directives. To separate aircraft and issue safety alerts, the controller must know the location of all aircraft, terrain, and man-made obstructions in his or her particular sector.

The duty to separate. The rules regarding separation of IFR aircraft are rigid. Controllers must maintain a 1,000-foot vertical separation between aircraft flying below 29,000 feet, and a 2,000-foot vertical separation between aircraft at higher altitudes. (5) They must maintain five miles of horizontal separation between aircraft en route, and three miles of horizontal separation between aircraft in terminal areas. If two or more aircraft are even potentially on a collision course with each other or with an obstacle or terrain, the controller must direct someone to descend, climb, change course, change speed, or hold.

The duty to provide radar service. Controllers use radar to observe an aircraft's deviation from an assigned flight path, to monitor instrument approaches to landings, to direct an aircraft's course by providing vectors to the pilot, and to keep aircraft at a safe distance from each other. Radar scopes not only display the iconic green blips on black screens that signify an aircraft's position, but also contain data blocks that show, at a minimum, each aircraft's identification number, model, ground speed, and altitude.

FAA Order 7110.65 states that when an aircraft or any of its data drops off the radar scope, controllers must communicate with the aircraft to confirm that its transponder, the onboard equipment sensed by the controllers' radar, is working and that the aircraft is flying at the assigned altitude.

Controllers also use flight-progress strips--small strips of paper that contain the same information displayed in the data blocks, plus notes about each aircraft's position en route--which are displayed on a "strip board." The position of a strip on the board provides controllers quick information about the aircraft's progress.

Controllers have myriad other tools at their fingertips These include automated weather reporting data, alarms that should sound if an aircraft is approaching another aircraft or obstacle, and aviation maps and charts for the sector under control and for each airport in the controller's sector. Controllers may also have live weather radar displays. Each of these tools can be used to alert a pilot to any fixed or transient condition that may affect the safety of a flight.

Documentation of radar hits (the appearance of an aircraft on a radar screen), communications between the pilot and controllers, and weather data are critical to determine what happened in a crash. The aircraft's flight and navigation instrument displays at the point of impact are crucial. Reconstruction of radar tracks with position points, speeds, and altitudes, together with transcripts of air traffic control communications, can show that an aircraft went unmonitored by controllers for lengthy periods as it deviated from its course or altitude.

Reconstruction of wreckage may show that the pilot fixated on an unwise course, such as attempting a bad-weather landing despite having descended below the minimum descent altitude or having missed an approach point. It may also show that the controller instructed a pilot to descend to that altitude or sent the pilot on a course that flew the aircraft straight into a mountain.

Common defenses

When you represent a person injured in a plane crash and the lawsuit places some or all of the blame on air traffic controllers' failure to do their duty, you can expect to encounter one or more of the following common defenses.

"I had no duty." Despite Order 7110.65's plain language, the defense will usually claim that the directive is not an order but is merely a guide. This defense is based on the order's use of the word "judgment." For example, [section] 2-1-2 provides that "good judgment shall be used," and [section] 2-1-6 compels issuance of a safety alert if "in [the controller's] judgment" the aircraft is in unsafe proximity to an obstacle.

The contention that a controller's mistake can be dismissed as an exercise of judgment is without merit. Section 1-1-1, the first paragraph of the order, provides that controllers "are required to be familiar with the provisions of this order that pertain to their operational responsibilities and to exercise their best judgment if they encounter situations that are not covered by it." Such situations are rare.

In Daley v. United States, the Eleventh Circuit rejected the government's claim that Order 7110.65 is just a guideline. Referencing a manual that was the order's predecessor, the court wrote:

   [T]he precise nature of the assistance
   which ... the controllers owed under the
   circumstances was not, as the United States
   insists, a matter of judicial speculation; it
   was required by the provisions of the United
   States' own Air Traffic Control Manual
   (1980) (ATCM). Under Chapter 8 of the
   ATCM, which prescribes procedures for
   handling emergencies, the United States'
   controllers are required to "obtain enough
   information to handle the emergency intelligently,"
   section 1.1551; to "[p]rovide
   maximum assistance to aircraft in distress,"
   section 1.1552; to "[e]nlist the services of
   available radar facilities," id.; and to obtain
   any "pertinent information" about the aircraft--including
   position, altitude and
   heading--"as necessary," section 2.1570.
   In addition, under Chapter 2, section 1.22,
   the controllers are required to "[g]ive first
   priority ... to the issuance of safety advisories."
   Section 1.33 note 1 requires the
   controllers "to remain constantly alert" for
   situations requiring such a safety advisory;
   and, pursuant to section 1.33 note 3 (a), to
   issue such an advisory "if you are aware the
   aircraft is at an altitude which ... places it
   in unsafe proximity to ... obstructions." (6)

Thus, Order 7110.65 establishes only a minimum standard of care for air traffic controllers. (7) In fact, procedures required by the order are neither optional nor subject to a controller's judgment. Controllers must be vigilant and, at the very least, must issue instructions and clearances in accordance with the order. Section 2-1-1 provides:

   The primary purpose of the ATC [air traffic
   control] system is to prevent a collision between
   aircraft operating in the system and to
   organize and expedite the flow of traffic. In
   addition to its primary function, the ATC system
   has the capability to provide (with certain
   limitations) additional services.... The
   provision of additional services is not optional
   on the part of the controller, but rather is required
   when the work situation permits. (8)

Spacing and sequencing aircraft on landing, takeoff, and en route is more than a matter of subjective practice on the part of the controller. Controllers must, as a matter of law, "'establish the sequence of arriving and departing aircraft by requiring them to adjust flight or ground operation as necessary to achieve proper spacing.'" (9)

Because controllers have such specific duties, it is no wonder that in most cases the defense will attempt to scale to the bare minimum what the controller was supposed to do. This is the basis for the next defense.

"I did my job." Air traffic controllers have far less control over aircraft flying under visual flight rules than over aircraft flying under instrument flight rules. For example, pilots flying VFR have the primary responsibility to see and avoid other aircraft. (10) Some courts have interpreted this to mean that a pilot flying VFR must be vigilant beyond observing and staying away from other traffic, obstacles, bad weather, and even wake turbulence from jets that have passed nearby. (11)

However, air traffic controllers have duties with regard to VFR flights as well. For example, chapter 5 of the order provides that controllers have a duty to issue a traffic advisory when the track of an aircraft under their control is likely to merge with the track of an aircraft not under their control. (12) Although both the pilot and air traffic controllers share responsibility for the safe conduct of a VFR flight, it is not enough for a controller to warn only IFR aircraft of other traffic and let the VFR planes fend for themselves. As the Ninth Circuit noted in Spaulding v. United States:

   [B]efore the pilot is held legally responsible
   for his aircraft, he must know those facts
   which are material to the operation of his
   plane. An important source of this information
   is tower personnel, air traffic controllers,
   and service station personnel. The
   air traffic controller is required to give all information
   and warnings specified in his
   manuals, and in certain situations he must
   give warnings beyond the manuals. This
   duty to warn is based on the simple tort principle
   that once the government has assumed
   a function or service, it is liable for
   negligent performance. (13)

Air traffic controllers thus have a duty to issue traffic advisories to all aircraft in the vicinity, whether VFR or IFR. (14) As one judge said, "The extent of the government's duty of due care does not rest within its own discretion. The government cannot circumscribe its own liability by limiting it to the letter of its own regulation, policies, manuals, and directives." (15) It is not a defense to say the pilot was flying VFR or that the controller's job was limited to controlling IFR aircraft.

The order itself makes clear that controllers cannot pick and choose which services they want to provide. Section 2-1-1 expressly provides that, in addition to preventing a collision between aircraft by organizing and expediting the flow of traffic, controllers shall provide additional services to the extent permitted by higher-priority duties. And the highest-priority duties by law are keeping aircraft separated at safe distances and issuing safety alerts.

"It was not my job." Controllers in one facility are not responsible for the conduct of controllers, weather observers, or anyone else in a different facility. (16) Moreover, an FAA tower is not responsible for errors by controllers who work in a tower operated by a private contractor. (17) However, multiple controllers may have some responsibility for a single aircraft and that can lead to confusion--as well as a claim that an error was not the responsibility of the controller in question.

TRACON facilities, also known as terminal control centers, are typically located near large airports. Their arrival and departure controllers typically monitor and direct aircraft that are within 30 to 50 nautical miles of an airport and between the surface and 10,000 feet. But smaller control towers, which are often subject to their local TRACON, have some air traffic control authority as well. For example, air traffic in the area of Jacksonville, Florida, is under the control of the Jacksonville TRACON. Craig Field in Jacksonville and San Augustine Airport just down the road have their own control towers, which are subject to the Jacksonville TRACON.

Such small, often remote towers, many of which are staffed by private contractors, have radar screens that display data fed directly by the TRACON radar. They also use the Minimum Safe Altitude Warning (MSAW) system, a computer-generated map that triggers an alert--flashing lights or sounding an alarm, or both--if radar shows that an aircraft has come too close to an obstacle or to the ground or is on a potential collision path with another aircraft.

These remote towers provide takeoff, landing, and ground control instructions only at their own airports and do not generally have the authority to control aircraft flying under instrument control other than issuing landing and takeoff clearances and receiving transfers of communication (but not control) from TRACON controllers. This is true even if the remote airport has an instrument-landing system. Thus, an aircraft flying under control of a TRACON controller to a remote tower may be under the control of both controllers, and each must be vigilant for the risk of an aircraft coming close to the ground, an obstacle, or another aircraft, even one not under his or her control.

Before August 2006, [section] 2-1-6 of Order 7110.65 stated that if a TRACON had given control of an aircraft to one of its remote towers and the remote tower had MSAW alert capability, then the TRACON did not have to inform the remote tower controller if it observed an alert for that aircraft. Remote tower controllers often took the position that only the TRACON could issue a radar-observed warning to a pilot, whereas the TRACON controllers contended that the order absolved them of responsibility to warn anyone if a remote tower was in communication with an aircraft. Trouble was inevitable.

In 2006, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) identified a series of crashes in which controllers at every level either ignored MSAW alarms or permitted aircraft to fly into other aircraft or obstacles, such as mountains, by allowing the aircraft to descend below the minimum en route altitude for the area. In some cases, the controllers ignored the alarms. In others, there was no alarm because the controllers did not observe that the aircraft had stopped sending valid radar signals, which disables the MSAW system for that aircraft. Investigation of these and other accidents revealed that controllers often think the alarms are nuisances and ignore them.

Two such accidents happened on Nimitz Hill on Guam: one in which a Korean Air Lines 747 crashed, and a second in which a Philippine Airlines A330 clipped power lines and escaped. In the first case, the MSAW map was erroneously placed away from the mountain, so that there was no alarm. In the second case, the controllers ignored the alarms. In a common scenario, the computer-generated MSAW map is set lower than the electronic radio signal of the instrument landing system to prevent alarms going off in good weather when pilots fly visual approaches lower than they would fly an instrument approach.

Line controllers, the employees who watch the radar scopes, often are not aware that the MSAW system fails altogether if an aircraft's transponder occasionally drops three consecutive correct radar "hits" or "replies" to the airport radar. In this situation--aircraft missing on radar--the MSAW simply won't work. This is when controller vigilance should be at its highest. Yet controllers often wait for an alarm before issuing a safety alert. It's a pilot's "damned if you do, damned if you don't" nightmare: controllers who wait for alarms that can't go off and controllers who ignore alarms that do.

Following its study, the NTSB published a safety letter (18) to warn controllers of what should have been clear: The mandatory duty to issue safety alerts requires that controllers be constantly vigilant and not wait for a flashing light or audible alarm. In addition, the NTSB undertook to change a dangerous situation by deleting a former subsection of [section] 2-1-6 that suggested that a TRACON controller could remain silent when he or she believed a remote tower would respond to an MSAW alert.

This change has helped counter the "it's not my job" contention. Even so, one response to this defense has always been in the text of [section] 2-1-6: "Do not assume that because someone else has responsibility for the aircraft that the unsafe situation has been observed and the safety alert issued; inform the appropriate controller." Even with the old rule in place, a controller never was at liberty to ignore a danger observed on radar.

Controllers also depend on others to provide pilots with weather information. Automated weather machines broadcast local conditions to pilots, and certified weather observers supplement this with their own observations. Controllers are supposed to inform pilots of updates as the weather changes in any significant respect, without waiting for a computer-generated update. Section 2-9-1 (d) provides that controllers shall ensure that pilots receive the most current weather information. But even With so many different sources of data available, sometimes pilots don't get the most current information. (19)

To compound the problem, controllers may contend that their jobs are strictly limited to the letter of the duties imposed by Order 7110.65. For instance, [section] 2-6-4 requires controllers to issue pertinent reported weather and chaff areas, radar reflections that define thunderstorm cells. En route controllers must issue weather reports within 150 miles of the sector they control, but no order requires that radar controllers provide a pilot with weather at each airport in the vicinity if the pilot changes destinations.

Thus, when the plane crashes because of thicker fog than reported or an unreported change in the aircraft's altimeter setting, everyone in the tower--from the controller on the radar screen to the person who takes the automated weather readings--will insist that someone else, including the pilot, was responsible for the missed information.

So who is responsible? The Federal Tort Claims Act requires that a claimant identify the responsible person or entity, such as a particular TRACON, and not just the agency, such as the FAA. Failure to say exactly who is responsible can be fatal to a claim. (20) This leads to the final common defense.

"It was pilot error." The controller will insist that the crash was due to the pilot's mistake, not the controller's. Federal Aviation Regulation 91.3 says that "the pilot in command of an aircraft is directly responsible for, and is the final authority as to, the operation of that aircraft." Other regulations obligate pilots to become familiar With all available weather reports and forecasts and alternatives, to have and use pertinent aeronautical charts, and to ensure the airworthiness of the aircraft. (21)

The defending controller will cite these and related rules to argue that the pilot made the decision about where to fly, so the resulting crash was the pilot's fault. Controllers may claim that their failure to provide accurate weather information is excusable because the pilot should have asked for it (22) or that their failure to provide icing reports was immaterial because the pilot probably would have flown anyway. (23) As one judge put it: "When the pilot came within sight of the storm front, he most certainly received visual information which stood out in more vivid detail than any that he failed to receive from the [local Flight Service Station] operator." (24)

A list of the pilot acts and omissions that controllers may raise can be found very easily because the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association publishes them in an annual survey of the causes of general aviation accidents. The survey typically finds that pilots cause between 70 percent and 80 percent of general aviation crashes. (25) It subdivides the pilot-related categories in a manner that echoes controller defense contentions of pilot negligence by focusing on phases of flight, such as takeoff, climb, en route, descent, or landing, and adding weather and fuel management.

The prudent trial lawyer will investigate and resolve each of these potential causes of the accident before the defense raises them.

It is the trial lawyer's responsibility to investigate whether there is more to an airplane crash than meets the eye--or than it first appears in an NTSB report. Air traffic controllers are part of a team, and often the part that lives to tell the NTSB version of the crash. By investigation, discovery, and close study of the rules, you can tell your client's version as well.

Notes

(1.) Natl. Transp. Safety Bd., Factual Report: Aviation--NTSB No. DCA97MA058 (the crash of a Boeing 747-300, Korean Air Flight 801, in Nimitz Hill, Guam on Aug. 6, 1997); Natl. Transp. Safety Bd., Factual Report: Aviation--NTSB No. ATL05LA105 (the crash of a Cessna T182T, N53538, in Naples, Fla., on June 20, 2005); Natl. Transp. Safety Bd., Factual Report: Aviation--NTSB No. DCA06MA064 (the crash of a Bombadier CL-600-2B19, Comair Flight 5191, at Lexington, Ky., on Aug. 27, 2006) ; Natl. Transp. Safety Bd., Factual Report: Aviation--NTSB Nos. DCA06RA076A & DCA06RA076B (the crash of a Boeing 737-800 Gol Airline jet and an Embraer E135 Legacy corporate jet in Azevedo, Brazil, on Sept. 29, 2006).

(2.) See 28 U.S.C. [section] 1346(b)(1), 2671-2681 (2000); Hartz v. United States, 387 F.2d 870 (5th Cir. 1968). Given that federal tort claims are resolved by the law of the state where the negligence occurred, what may be actionable negligence in one state may be acceptable conduct in another state. See e.g. Richards v. United States, 369 U.S. 1, 15-16 (1962).

(3.) Coatney v. Berkshire, 500 F.2d 290, 292 (8th Cir. 1974).

(4.) Fed. Aviation Admin., Order 7110.65R, Air Traffic Control (Feb. 16, 2006; includes changes effective Aug. 3, 2006, and Mar. 15, 2007), www.faa.gov/airports_airtraffic/air_traffic/publications/atpubs/ATC/index.htm. Other publications complement and supplement the procedures enumerated in Order 7110.65. For example, each TRACON has an information manual specifying procedures at that facility. Local rules define the area sectors, interfacility communications, position responsibilities, and coordination with satellite airports. These must be discovered in litigation and reviewed against Order 7110.65.

(5.) The United States adopted RVSM (reduced vertical separation minimum) on January 20, 2005, to reduce the minimum vertical separation to 1,000 feet between aircraft equipped with traffic alert radar and flying at higher altitudes. See www.faa.gov/ats/ato/rvsm1.htm. This rule change may have contributed to the midair collision between a 737 and an Embraer corporate jet in Brazil on September 29, 2006. (Natl. Transp. Safety Bd., Factual Report DCA06RA076, supra n. 1.

(6.) 792 F.2d 1081, 1086 (11th Cir. 1986) (per curiam); see also Gill v. United States, 429 F.2d 1072, 1075 (5th Cir. 1970) ("The government's duty to provide services with due care to airplane pilots may rest ... upon the requirements of procedures manuals spelling out the functions of its air traffic controllers...."); Abrisch v. United States, 359 F. Supp. 2d 1214 (M.D. Fla. 2004).

(7.) Armstrong v. United States, 756 F.2d 1407, 1409 (9th Cir. 1985).

(8.) Emphasis added. The order has very limited exceptions to mandatory compliance with its rules: when deviations from the rules are required by circumstances specified by International Civil Aviation Authority agreements or by a treaty; when a local agreement between multiple towers controls a local situation; when an FAA directive controls a local situation; when a military situation is presented; or in an emergency, which is a circumstance with its own prescribed rules for controllers.

(9.) Rodriguez v. United States, 823 F.2d 735, 740 (3d Cir. 1987) (quoting Air Traffic Control Handbook 7110.65C (Jan. 21, 1982)).

(10.) 14 C.F.R. [section] 91.113(2007). The regulation applies equally to IFR and VFR operations, but IFR pilots navigate by reference to instruments, not external visual cues.

(11.) See e.g. In re N-500 L Cases, 691 F.2d 15, 28-9 (1st Cir. 1982).

(12.) FAA Order 7110.65R, [section] 5-1-8; see e.g. Allegheny Airlines, Inc. v. United States, 420 F. Supp. 1339, 1343-46 (S.D. Ind. 1976), rev'd on other grounds sub nom. Kohr v. Allegheny Airlines, Inc., 586 F.2d 53 (7th Cir. 1978).

(13.) 455 F.2d 222, 226 (9th Cir. 1972).

(14.) See In re Air Crash Disaster Near Cerritos, Cal., 1989 WL 330820 at **3-5 (C.D. Cal. Aug. 11, 1989), aff'd sub nom. Steering Comm. v. United States, 6 F.3d 572 (9th Cir. 1993).

(15.) Universal Aviation Underwriters v. United States, 496 F. Supp. 639, 650 (D. Colo. 1980).

(16.) 28 U.S.C. [section] [section] 1346(b), 2671 (2000).

(17.) See e.g. Alinsky v. United States, 415 F. 3d 639, 644-45 (7th Cir. 2005). The FAA has increasingly hired private contractors to staff towers at small airports. Such contractors are not subject to the provisions of the Federal Tort Claims Act but are subject to liability under the law of the state where the act or omission of the controller in a private tower took place. However, FAA Order 7110.65 applies to their conduct.

(18.) Natl. Transp. Safety Bd., Safety Recommendation A-06-44 through -47 (2006).

(19.) See Worthington v. United States, 21 F.3d 399 (11th Cir. 1994) (controllers failed to provide current weather information and misled the pilot into believing he would break out of fog at the proper landing height).

(20.) See e.g. Deloria v. Veterans Admin., 927 F.2d 1009 (7th Cir. 1991).

(21.) 14 C.F.R. [section] [section] 91.103, 91.169, and 91.7 (2007).

(22.) See e.g. Jackson v. United States, 156 F.3d 230 (1st Cir. 1998) (applying West Virginia law).

(23.) Spurgin-Dienst v. United States, 359 F.3d 451 (7th Cir. 2004) (applying Indiana law).

(24.) Black v. United States, 441 F.2d 741, 745 (5th Cir. 1971).

(25.) See e.g. Aircraft Owners & Pilots Assn., Air Safety Found., 2006 Nall Report: Accident Trends and Factors for 2005, at 23, www.aopa.org/asf/publications/06nall.pdf (2006). The survey attributes about 10 percent of crashes to "unknown" causes. Id. at 5.

JACK LONDON practices aviation crash litigation as senior partner at Jack W. London & Associates in Austin, Texas.