Qantas passengers to sue Airbus over plunge terror

Sydney: Dozens of Qantas passengers and crew are launching a multi-million dollar case against Airbus and a component-maker over a terrifying mid-air plunge which left scores injured, a lawyer said on Monday.
Attorney Floyd Wisner said he was representing 76 passengers and crew who were on the 2008 flight which dived steeply twice, tossing people around the cabin and forcing an emergency landing at a remote Australian air force base.
Wisner refused to put a figure on the compensation sought in US courts from Europe's Airbus and American firm Northrop Grumman, which made a data unit on the plane, but said it would be in the millions of dollars.
Among the mostly Australian group he is representing, which also includes passengers from Britain, Sri Lanka, India and Singapore, are the three Qantas pilots who were on the flight, he said.
The Airbus A330-300 was flying at 37,000 feet from Singapore to Perth in October 2008 when the autopilot disengaged and the plane nose-dived, plunging 650 feet (200 metres) and throwing passengers and loose items around the cabin.
After the pilots brought it back to altitude, the plane went into another plunge and dropped another 400 feet. More than 100 people were injured.
Many passengers travelling that day were so traumatised by the incident they are no longer able to fly, he added.
He said he believed the captain of the flight, a former "top gun pilot from the US Navy", had not flown since.
Wisner, whose practice is devoted to aviation cases, said he had been contacted by Australian lawyers to work on the compensation claims before the statute of limitations expires on October 7 this year.
He said if the claims were not settled, he expected the case to go to trial in the US within two years.
Qantas, which prides itself on its safety record, said the incident was an "exceptionally rare event", noting that the Australian Transport Safety Bureau was yet to release its final report into the cause of the plunges.
21/09/10 Madeleine Coorey/AFP

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Categories: Foreign Sep 2010, Safety Sep 2010