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IN THE NEWS MARCH 18, 2001

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August 29, 2001

US Court to try AirPhil Crash Suit

Illinois, USA -- ruled last week that it will try the damage suit against US firms involved in bringing to the country the Air Philippines Boeing 737-200 plane that crashed on April 19 last year in the Island Garden City of Samal, killing all its 131 passengers and crew. The suit was filed against US firms EAR Corporation and Southwest Airlines by Joey Layug, the Chicago-based son of Josefina, one of the passengers who perished in the crash. The August 17 ruling of the Cook County Court in Illinois prompted a number of relatives of the crash victims to follow the example set by Layug. They immediately got in touch with US law firms that will handle the case against EAR Corp. and Southwest.

This as testimonies by new witnesses indicate the victims were actually wearing life vests when their bodies were retrieved from the crash site at a coconut grove in Samal. The vests are important clues that could disprove the investigating committee's findings of "pilot error" as the most probable cause of the crash. The plane must have malfunctioned The suit was filed against US firms EAR Corporation and Southwest Airlines by Joey Layug, the Chicago-based son of Josefina, was one of the 131 passengers and crew who perished in the crash. Lawyer Terrence Ford, an expert in aviation litigation representing the Chicago-based O'Reilly, Danko and Collins law firms, said EAR Corp. is the US firm that bought the ill-fated Boeing 737-200 plane from Southwest Airlines. Ford, who met with reporters at the Marco Polo Hotel here today, said Southwest Airlines reportedly rendered the plane out of commission after 20 years of service.

But Southwest Airlines salvaged the plane from a desert in Arizona where it was parked when EAR Corp. bought it in 1997. EAR Corporation in turn leased the plane to Air Philippines at a very cheap cost that year. Ford said they will include other relatives as complainants against both firms. He said three US law firms, in particular the O'Reilly; Sterns and Walker/Bowles and Verna and the Nolan Law Group, are consolidating the case against the two firms and will file it before the two-year statute of limitations on such suits expires next year. But Ford already started today interviews with relatives of the crash victims intending to be party to the suit. He said they intend to amend the case by including as respondents Boeing Co, the manufacturer of the aircraft; Pratt and Whitney, makers of the plane's engine; and Air Philippines as soon as they consolidate enough evidences against these firms. Ford said the US court ruling is significant because it opens better chances for the relatives to win just compensation than the P1 million to P1.7 million the Llyods of London, the insurers Air Philippines, paid to some of the victims' relatives. Other relatives refused the amounts offered and the corresponding quitclaim that went with it.

Ford said that based on the award made by the courts to other crash victims in the United States, compensation for the victims' families could reach as high as $2 million. Roger Fernandez, the Filipino legal counsel of some relatives of the crash victims, said they will also be filing motions before the local courts to declare null and void the quitclaims signed by some relatives with the insurers of Air Philippines. He said a number of those who signed the waiver in exchange for the "meager" compensation were not accompanied by lawyers and did not fully understand the content of the document they initialed. Ford clarified the suits were filed not because of money but because relatives want justice. A number of relatives had earlier suspected a cover-up in the probe conducted under the Estrada administration, Air Philippines being owned by a close friend of then President Estrada. then President Joseph Estrada. Ford said testimonies made by new witnesses indicate the victims were actually wearing life vests when their bodies were retrieved from the crash site at a coconut grove in Samal. Ford said the vests are important clues that could disprove the investigating committee's findings of "pilot error" as the most probable cause of the crash. He said the vests indicate the pilots were actually preparing for a sea crash because the plane's system must have malfunctioned. He said they were also able to get a witness who could testify that a severed hand of the plane's pilot Capt. Don Sardalla, was found gripping hard on the rudder controls of the aircraft. He said this could indicate he desperately tried to prevent the plane from going down. "But the plane won't go up because something could be wrong with it," Ford said. He said even more suspicious was the decision of Air Transportation authorities to allow Air Philippines to bulldoze the crash site two days after the incident. He said the main wreckage and the trail of the planes' debris would have provided important clues that will explain the cause of the crash had they not been touched. What was also highly suspicious, he said, was the decision of Air Philippines and air transportation officials to bury the wreckage with cement. "We believe that this (independent) investigation was politically motivated. It was meant to protect Lucio Tan (Air Philippines owner) who is also the close friend of Estrada," Ford said.