Canadian Seneca Crash Raises Old, but Important Questions

Last Tuesday, an 82 year-old pilot crashed a Piper Seneca into an apartment building in Richmond, B.C. Sadly he was killed, but he was the only fatality. The aircraft did not catch on fire or start a fire in the building, but the fire department put so much water on the wreck that the apartments on the 9 floors beneath the crash were ruined. Avweb reported that the residents of the apartment building are filing a lawsuit naming the pilot, his estate and Piper Aircraft as defendants.

The apartment residents complain that some things, like furniture, won't get paid for by their insurance and some of them don't have any insurance. I do feel bad for the families who did what they could to protect their home and are affected by this accident. I carry renter's insurance when I fly; it includes hull and liability insurance. The coverage for a light twin like the Seneca should have been at least $1M. I would think between that sum and the individual residents' owner/renter insurance, most damages could be taken care of.

I don't feel even a little bit bad for those who didn't have insurance. In some places, people might have had the excuse of not being able to afford insurance. However, when I looked up Maverick Real Estate's description of the Rosario Gardens condominium I saw, "a 200 unit condominium project in Richmond, B.C. where some buyers lined up for 3 days and nights to be first to buy. 90% of the project sold out in 3 days." These were not some low-end apartments occupied by people who can't afford insurance. The Vancouver Sun calls this building a luxury high-rise.

In a Richmond News article the local representative of the Canadian Transport Safety Board mentioned that aircraft were flying in that same traffic pattern over that same area for years before any of those buildings were constructed. That's easy to deduce when you take a look at an aerial photograph of the area posted by CBC News. The crash site is on right crosswind/departure or left base leg for 08R/26L.

I wonder how the residents can possibly think they could blame Piper for this. If anything, it seems like they should be thanking the manufacturer for building a plane that didn't explode or catch on fire on impact. I hope the court hearing this lawsuit considers that.

If the building residents are so out to blame someone, I wonder why they aren't also suing the fire department that did the actual damage to their apartments. I hope the court considers that.

If this had been an accidental fire, a tornado, a meteorite or any of a dozen other things, there would be nobody for these people to blame. As long as the pilot was carrying insurance and he was medically ready to fly, this accident was far less likely than most of those other disasters and there is no reason to punish his family even more.

A few years ago someone decided to build a hospital under upwind/final at the airport I learned to fly at. Am I wrong to call that irresponsible? I hope the Canadian court sees things my way. Otherwise, every individual and aircraft manufacturer who's planes fly in and out of FNL is liable if a crash hits that hospital. Similar situations exist at other airports all around the world. That seems unreasonable to me. What do you think?