N9391M destroyed at KOSH

[MikeOH]

3 minutes ago, Fly Boomer said:

Average airplane was $8,000,000

Oh, just a few more Cap’n Crunch box tops and I’ll be there…

[A64Pilot]

36 minutes ago, Fly Boomer said:

Average airplane was $8,000,000

Years ago I think about 2010 I was told by someone in Gulfstream that you could take the number of whichever Gulfstream like the G-650 and take the zero off and that was the cost of the aircraft, without paint or interior.

Interiors were most often done believe it or not but by STC as each one was custom of course, why the interior have to be STC’d I don’t know, but bet paint and interior added a couple of million

[Fly Boomer]

1 hour ago, A64Pilot said:

Years ago I think about 2010 I was told by someone in Gulfstream that you could take the number of whichever Gulfstream like the G-650 and take the zero off and that was the cost of the aircraft, without paint or interior.

Interiors were most often done believe it or not but by STC as each one was custom of course, why the interior have to be STC’d I don’t know, but bet paint and interior added a couple of million

To paraphrase a certain senator "A million here, a million there -- pretty soon you're talking about real money."

[M20F-1968]

On 8/19/2023 at 9:35 AM, 1980Mooney said:

I believe that virtually every homeowner's and every umbrella policy specifically excludes any coverage for the ownership or operation of aircraft.  This has come up before and on Beechtalk.  I know my homeowner and umbrella polices do not cover an occurance like this.

I am not sure that the limitation would affect a third party making a claim against a person's liability policy such as an umbrella policy, which is meant to extend liability broadly to protect the policy owner.  One needs to look at the policy itself to determine coverage.  Usually, a person purchases such a policy to limit their own exposure should the unlikely occur.  

John Breda

[druidjaidan]

The final report was released today.

NTSB# CEN23FA333

"A gyroplane and helicopter collided midair while maneuvering for landing in day visual meteorological conditions. The aircraft were participating in a fly-in event that provided daily pilot briefings on flight operations and procedures. During the briefings, event coordinators informed pilots that 360° turns in the traffic pattern were prohibited.

Flight track information, witness statements, videos, and damage to the aircraft indicated that the gyroplane impacted the left side of the helicopter while performing a prohibited 360° turn on the base leg of the visual approach. The helicopter impacted terrain, came to rest inverted, and a postaccident fire ensued. The gyroplane impacted an unoccupied airplane. The gyroplane pilot had no recollection of the accident flight.

Postaccident examinations of both aircraft revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operations. The circumstances of the accident are consistent with the failure of the gyroplane pilot to see and avoid the helicopter while performing a prohibited maneuver in the traffic pattern, resulting in a collision with the helicopter."

 

Report_CEN23FA333_192738_5_16_2024 3_16_31 PM.pdf

[jetdriven]

We found it interesting to do the air venture cup race, They require insurance with adequate limits and also they have to be named specifically with the waiver of subrogation which cost us an extra $260 this year. But to fly into Oshkosh or fly while giving rides there you’re not required to have insurance at all. I think the OP here probably has a valid lawsuit against EAA for failing to do their due regard to protect and visitors. 

[Parker_Woodruff]

 

11 minutes ago, jetdriven said:

We found it interesting to do the air venture cup race, They require insurance with adequate limits and also they have to be named specifically with the waiver of subrogation which cost us an extra $260 this year. But to fly into Oshkosh or fly while giving rides there you’re not required to have insurance at all. I think the OP here probably has a valid lawsuit against EAA for failing to do their due regard to protect and visitors. 

How's EAA supposed to get into the at-fault pilot's aircraft and make sure the pilot guy doesn't do an unapproved 360 degree turn which results in property damage on the ground?

[Aerodon]

Look at the warbirds over wanaka yak 3 crash.  The pilot specifically asked if the grass runway was in use at the briefing and was told that it was.  He was uninsured and successfully sued the organizers and the guys responsible for placing the cherry picker on the runway.

Read about the P59 and B17 crashing Texas, there was no real horizontal or vertical separation plan discussed at the briefing, and look at the end result.

The thing about liability is you have to prove the other party was liable.  In this case the organizers came up with a rule, and the pilot ignored it.  Not to say a jury wouldn't somehow find the organizer  partially liable.

And then the waivers.  The local ski hill has several 'issues' a year (I won't call them accidents), some of them escalate to settlements and some eventually escalate to lawsuits and damages awarded.

Aerodon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[jetdriven]

2 hours ago, Parker_Woodruff said:

 

How's EAA supposed to get into the at-fault pilot's aircraft and make sure the pilot guy doesn't do an unapproved 360 degree turn which results in property damage on the ground?

Require adequate liability insurance for everybody giving demo rides. Frankly, they should require for all attendees. Make it a condition on that card whenever you tie your plane down for camping.

I talked to the plane owner after it happened, and the person giving the rides had the aircraft  registered to some fake LLC in Delaware and he basically holed up in a hotel for a couple days with a fake name and then disappeared. And that’s not OK.

[druidjaidan]

1 hour ago, jetdriven said:

Require adequate liability insurance for everybody giving demo rides. Frankly, they should require for all attendees. Make it a condition on that card whenever you tie your plane down for camping.

I talked to the plane owner after it happened, and the person giving the rides had the aircraft  registered to some fake LLC in Delaware and he basically holed up in a hotel for a couple days with a fake name and then disappeared. And that’s not OK.

Turned out he was in the hospital and then booked it home right after and went radio silent because that's what his lawyers told him to do. 

So here's the story as it is. We tracked him down eventually despite his Houdini act. It didn't do much good. The plane was registered to a BS LLC as you note, but that's only a small part of the issue. If you read the report and supporting docs you'll find that the pilot has suffered some severe memory loss. In fact the only thing he appears to vividly recall is that this was a "personal flight and totally not a demo flight, :wink: :wink:". Never mind that he didn't even know the name of his passenger, because we all regularly take up anonymous people that ask and don't even get their name. The pilot was an official dealer for "ELA Aviation", which totally isn't a subsidiary of the Spanish company "ELA Aviacion". ELA Aviation "was not present" at Airventure (it's just two guys renting a room in Florida anyway) and did not have a booth or anything else at Airventure.  However, ELA Aviacion was there and totally paid the required liability insurance premium, but they totally didn't have people there giving demo flights.

So we would need to prove that the pilot was actually giving a demo flight, that ELA Aviacion (a non US company) should be responsible for a dealer that authorized by ELA Aviation, that the insurance policy should cover a dealer in general, so on and so on.

EAA in my mind totally fucked up here in no small way. There is no way they should be allowing semi official demo flights without requiring insurance from the pilots, owners, and vendors. The changes being made in response to the incident also shed some light on the story: there were pilots ignoring the briefing and being allowed to continue to operate counter to the briefing. The rules weren't being enforced.

The reality is that it's likely a no win situation for us. We could sue the pilot. We could sue the vendor. We could sue EAA. All likely would have some liability, but proving it would be expensive and likely exceed our finanances. I suspect they will all get sued, by the family of the helicopter pilot due to the wrongful death. Our losses just aren't big enough to make it feasible unless we are doing it basically out of spite. Which maybe we do, I'm pissed off that EAA didn't ensure the vendors had appropriate insurance and allowed these layers of indirection to result in a pilot operating without insurance to operate in such a sensitive corridor as the ultralight pattern is. We've had a few media outlets reach out to talk about the incident and we've mostly held off so far, but perhaps now will be the time given the outcome of the report.

Edited May 17 by druidjaidan

[jetdriven]

Thanks for setting the record straight. The EAA is supposedly a reputable organization, but they should ban the shit bag fly-by-night half as erector set airplane and aircraft  companies  who get people killed or will eventually. They don’t need the money that bad.  I’m all for experiments and inventing new stuff and pushing the industry forward, but there are plenty of charlatans who are swimming naked and they bring people down with them. And they should exercise some due diligence with that. Perhaps they take some of my $300 I had to pay to join the air race that doesn’t even go to Oshkosh to pay some people to vet these attendees.  Anybody giving rides or displaying Aircraft needs to have a bond posted for the full amount of damage that they could physically cause. I mean, I have $1 million  policy on my plane for a reason. And if they can’t afford that then they shouldn’t be building airplanes or selling rides or selling kits or selling anything. My feeling is if you actually hire a real lawyer and name them in a lawsuit, the 80 grand for your plane is gonna come forth really quick. Because they gotta pay money to defend the lawsuit just like you gotta pay money to sue them, but they actually have to pay more because they’re pretty culpable if you look at it.

[PT20J]

I'm missing something. If the airplane was adequately insured, I would collect from the insurance company and let them try to recoup their loss from the other parties. But it wouldn't seem worth my time nor cost effective to sue anyone over this. Sure, I'd be pissed that my airplane was destroyed, but at the end of the day, the remedy for this is to recoup the hull value so as to be made financially whole.

[LANCECASPER]

Suing because of anger almost never yields good results, although there’s a time when we all want to do it for some reason to balance the scales. You pay to be covered by your insurance company for an agreed-upon value and your policy also means that they will defend you if you get sued and even sue to recover what they paid out (subrogate).

If we decide to self-insure or under-insure and agree to a value on our policy for which we could never replace a complete loss, that’s a personal choice, but still not the fault of the person who wronged us or the company that sold us the policy. We only do that thinking we will beat the odds, and if there are no claims, we absolutely do. Not so much though when we have a loss. It’s been said many times before on here - you came out very well since neither you or nor your family were injured or killed in the tragedy. Money can be earned all over again.

I like the Laugh-Sooner method of life when something bad happens financially. Even though it’s terrible, someday I’m going to laugh about this. Why not laugh sooner?

[EricJ]

2 hours ago, jetdriven said:

Thanks for setting the record straight. The EAA is supposedly a reputable organization, but they should ban the shit bag fly-by-night half as erector set airplane and aircraft  companies  who get people killed or will eventually. 

That's a judgement call that depending on who you talk to would exclude a significant fraction or a large fraction of the vendors.   Many manufacturers don't have insurance because it is prohibitively expensive (this includes several very well-known long-time aircraft manufacturers).    Excluding a big fraction of the vendors would make the show impractical.   

It's just the reality of the situation.    It's not new, it's not even unusual, it's just the reality.   We all take risk just by leaving the house in the morning, which may or may not be higher than staying home.

 

[Pinecone]

13 hours ago, PT20J said:

I'm missing something. If the airplane was adequately insured,

The plane was underinsured.  Owner cannot take the insurance money and buy another airplane.

[Bolter]

17 hours ago, druidjaidan said:

The reality is that it's likely a no win situation for us. We could sue the pilot. We could sue the vendor. We could sue EAA. All likely would have some liability, but proving it would be expensive and likely exceed our finanances. I suspect they will all get sued, by the family of the helicopter pilot due to the wrongful death. Our losses just aren't big enough to make it feasible unless we are doing it basically out of spite. Which maybe we do, I'm pissed off that EAA didn't ensure the vendors had appropriate insurance and allowed these layers of indirection to result in a pilot operating without insurance to operate in such a sensitive corridor as the ultralight pattern is. We've had a few media outlets reach out to talk about the incident and we've mostly held off so far, but perhaps now will be the time given the outcome of the report.

When the family of the Helo Pilot sue, can that provide something you can leverage off of?  Join their team as an additional party?  I am not comparing the losses, but you do share a common defendant, so maybe there is something there.

Related, there is a 201 hangared at S43 Harvey that has a share for sale.  I think it was on Facebook, but maybe it was here.  It is a good plane.  PM me if you want a name and phone number.  

-dan

[Parker_Woodruff]

18 hours ago, jetdriven said:

Require adequate liability insurance for everybody giving demo rides. Frankly, they should require for all attendees. Make it a condition on that card whenever you tie your plane down for camping.

I talked to the plane owner after it happened, and the person giving the rides had the aircraft  registered to some fake LLC in Delaware and he basically holed up in a hotel for a couple days with a fake name and then disappeared. And that’s not OK.

A lot of the stuff at EAA is uninsurable.

[Parker_Woodruff]

I don’t see how EAA is going to make an insurance requirement for operating an aircraft at OSH (especially since I imagine a lot of that premises isn’t even theirs - it’s a public airport). That said, is the ground where this aircraft took off from on their leased premises?

When I attend EAA and SnF we receive a lot of inquiries from manufacturers wanting us to get underwriters excited about their exotic airframes of which probably somewhere between 0 and 3 even exist. The accident here turns me off to some of this stuff even more.

[Parker_Woodruff]

But I can tell you that as a vendor we have to have premises liability insurance and I think even give them with Waiver of Subrogation on my workers compensation insurance. 

[jetdriven]

8 hours ago, Parker_Woodruff said:

A lot of the stuff at EAA is uninsurable.

Then they shouldn’t be giving rides or engaging activities that may cause risk to the general public. Maybe I’ve been married to a lawyer too long here, but you should not be holding your self out to the public if you do not have adequate insurance. It may be they are uninsurable for a reason, because their activities or their products are too damn dangerous for the general public. I’m pretty sure one thing, people like this make the insurance more expensive for the rest of us who do the right thing.

The EAA has absolute control over their vendors, and I get that some guy selling insurance in a booth is pretty low risk, but somebody giving rides in a rotorcraft is high risk to begin with, and they should either be adequately insured or they should give rides somewhere off premises, but somehow I had to have $1 million liability insurance that names EAA specifically and has a waiver of subrogation just to  participate in a closes course air race two counties away while a guy giving rides over a crowd of 10,000 people doesn’t have to have anything. That’s part of the reason why we’re not going to Oshkosh this year. But they paid their officers and Director handsomely. And I’m kind of tired of that shit too.

[Pinecone]

I can see some aircraft not being insured for hull, but liability???? 
 

[BlueSky247]

New guy here learning tons from this thread. OP, I sure hate how things worked out but glad your family wasn’t hurt. 
 

I’ve never been to Osh but always wanted to. This thread has convinced me not to fly there and keep an eye peeled for flying lawn chairs. 

[Mcstealth]

30 minutes ago, BlueSky247 said:

New guy here learning tons from this thread. OP, I sure hate how things worked out but glad your family wasn’t hurt. 
 

I’ve never been to Osh but always wanted to. This thread has convinced me not to fly there and keep an eye peeled for flying lawn chairs. 

Dirto^^^

[Fly Boomer]

19 hours ago, jetdriven said:

But they paid their officers and Director handsomely.

Check out what Marker Baker has been paid at AOPA.

[druidjaidan]

Regarding insurance...there was insurance for the vendor, ELA Aviacion. A Spanish company with no actual presence. ELA Aviation, the US company who was actually there, did not have insurance. Neither did the actual aircraft. Apparently, according to the community the entirety of gyrocopters, light rotorcraft, as well as almost everything else flying out of the UL field, have no insurance whatsoever. No liability, no hull, nothing. Remember that next time you're visiting the "Fun Fly Zone".

I very much regret parking in vintage parking, it's way too close to a bunch of yahoo's. I'll personally never park in Vintage again (well my new plane doesn't qualify anyway), that entire corridor is way to sketchy given what I know now about the people operating there.

Edited May 19 by druidjaidan