Family of Man Killed in Copter-Plane Midair Collision Files $250 Million Claim

The family of a Connecticut man killed in the January 29 collision of an American Airlines plane with a military Black Hawk helicopter over the Potomac River has filed a $250 million claim against the government.

A Chicago law firm, Clifford Law Offices, has made a pre-case filing against the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the U.S. Army over the crash that took the lives of all 67 people on board. The family alleges that federal employees were negligent or committed wrongful acts that caused the fatal accident.

According to Robert Clifford, the lead attorney, pre-case filings are required in order to present claims against the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA). He said the government has six months to act upon the claims, and if rejected or not acted upon within that time, plaintiffs have the right in the next two years to file lawsuits in federal district court that would be heard by a judge. Jury trials are not allowed in civil wrongful death actions against the government.

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The law firm has also asked all government agencies, American Airlines and helicopter firms Sikorsky Aircraft and Collins Aerospace to preserve all evidence related to the collision.

Clifford said that for now, he is “taking a cautionary approach” over whether to sue others such as American Airlines and Sikorsky, pending the release of a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) preliminary report that is due within weeks.

The FTCA filings were on behalf of the widow and three sons of Casey Crafton, 40, of Salem, Connecticut who died in the collision. According to Clifford, Grafton was returning from Kansas on a business trip working as a technical services manager at Guardian Jet, a private aircraft sales and consulting firm based in Guilford, Connecticut.

NTSB has reported that staffing of air traffic controllers was “not normal” at the time of the nighttime collision and that there may have been communication lapses between the controllers and the aircraft.