Families of the Brazil Plane Crash File Lawsuits

Filed in archive Aviation News on August 2, 2007

The first of many expected lawsuits in the Brazil plane crash in Sao Paulo was filed yesterday. The crash killed 199 people and is listed as the worst aviation disaster in Brazil history.

The complaint, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, also names European jet manufacturer Airbus, the Goodrich Corp., and International Aero Engines (IAE) as defendants, the family's lawyers said in a statement on Tuesday.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Ricardo Tazoe, a 35-year-old Peruvian who worked for Banco Santander in Miami.

Tazoe was among the 199 people who were killed when an Airbus A320 flown by TAM Linhas Aereas skidded off a rain-slicked runway at Sao Paulo's Congonhas Airport on July 17 and barreled into a cargo building, bursting into flames.

The suit charges TAM with negligence, arguing that it should not have allowed the plane to fly because one of its thrust reversers was not working. The complaint also alleges pilot error contributed to the crash.

"From the evidence gathered so far, it's clear that TAM knew there were problems with the aircraft," Steven C. Marks, an attorney at Miami law firm Podhurst Orseck, said in the statement. "Had (the thrust reverser) been operational, it may have prevented this accident."

TAM, which declined to comment on the case, has acknowledged that the right thrust reverser on the plane was broken. But both TAM and Airbus have said aviation regulations allow an A320 to fly for up to 10 days with a defective thrust reverser, which is used to complement the braking system.

The lawsuit, which is seeking unspecified financial damages, also accuses Airbus of negligence. Other defendants include IAE, which assembled the plane's engine, and Goodrich, the manufacturer of the aircraft's braking system.

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