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Biggest thing Halifax Air Canada crash passengers are 'owed' is an apology: PR expert

An Air Canada passenger jet that crashed is shown at the Stanfield International Airport in Halifax. (CP)
An Air Canada passenger jet that crashed is shown at the Stanfield International Airport in Halifax. (CP)

There’s an age-old adage in aviation law, “res ipsa loquitur:” Latin for “the thing speaks for itself.”

“What it means is, if you’re going to take people who are perfectly safe on the ground and lift them up into the air then you’ve got to put them back on the face of the earth safe and sound and if you don’t you’re (liable),” says J.J. Camp, a partner at Camp Fiorante Matthews Mogerman law firm in Vancouver. “Aviation law is not simple but that principal is very, very well embedded.”

As for what exactly is owed in the event of an airline accident, like the one in Halifax this past weekend, that’s much less well-established.

Air Canada Flight 624’s crash Halifax on Sunday morning, no doubt a particularly traumatic experience for passengers involved in light of the Germanwings crash, brings up that very question of what passengers are now owed in light of the incident.

What we know so far is this: Flight 624 touched down about 335 metres short of the runway, hit an antenna array, lost its landing gear, and slid another 335 metres down the runway on its belly before eventually grinding to a halt. While the 133 passengers and five crewmembers onboard survived the ordeal, over two-dozen people were taken to hospital.

But Camp says he’s unimpressed with the game of semantics out of the gate with Air Canada calling it a “hard landing.”

“When Air Canada came right out of the blocks and said ‘this is a hard landing,’ well I’m sorry I call bull,” he said. “Take a look at the remains of the aircraft – it’s a crash, let’s just call it what it is.”

The biggest thing that they’re owed is an apology for what happened and why it possibly could have happened because people want to try and put the pieces together.

—Deborah Knight, former WestJet director of media & public relations

In 30 years as a lawyer, Camp has tackled several high profile class action suits like the Air Transat Flight 236, which in 2001 sprung a fuel leak over the Atlantic Ocean due to improper maintenance and narrowly avoided disaster by the pilot gliding to safety on the Azores islands.

Then there was the Air France Flight 358 bound from Paris with 309 onboard, which tried to land at Toronto’s Pearson airport in the midst of a severe storm and overshot the runway, crashing into a ravine and catching fire. Luckily all passengers survived with only 12 injured.

“We recovered in excess of $20 million for the passengers,” he said, adding they sued Air France and the Greater Toronto Airport Authority as well as Nav Canada for transmitting bad weather data. “Most of them did not suffer physical injuries but they suffered post-traumatic stress.” 

With the most recent crash on Sunday in Halifax, Camp says he’s “almost certain there is liability to be pinned on someone.”

Nova Scotia law firm MacGillivray Law appears to agree, quickly announcing it would be putting together a class action case.


Related stories:

Airfield lights remained on after crash in Halifax: airport authority

Air Canada AC624 crash: 'Hard landing' too soft a term?

Air Canada AC624: Catherine Ouellet searches for man who carried aunt from plane


While some passengers have already been approached by Air Canada, details about compensation packages are expected to be released publicly later in the week. 

But what’s owed to the passengers extends beyond monetary compensation says Deborah Knight, principal at dkpr Public Relations Inc.

“The biggest thing that they’re owed is an apology for what happened and why it possibly could have happened because people want to try and put the pieces together,” says Knight, who used to work as director of media and public relations at WestJet.

“They want a promise that the CEO is actually going to investigate – that the airline understands the stress they’re going though and that the importance of getting to the bottom of why something happened.”

Timing is critical, especially in an age when social media makes it easy for the flood of opinions and facts to get blended and diluted.

“With these kinds of these incidents there’s a piece of it that will always be unknown,” she says. “(Airline spokespeople) are trained to be very careful to not make up answers or come up with hypothetical situations.”

She points out that while the liability and investigations take a little while, a lot of airlines have varying degrees of compensation packages already set out in their crisis management plan.

“Some companies will go beyond and pay additional expenses,” she says pointing to hospitalization costs, rehab and post-traumatic stress treatments.

“A smart airline would offer all of those services very quickly and very holistically to all the families involved,” she says.

Risk management plans may also include things like travel vouchers or hotels accommodations.

“I don’t think a refund is number one on the list, I mean you want to be able to give them the opportunity to fly again,” she says adding that in cases where the passengers are likely rattled from the incident, it’s good to go above and beyond to offer individual responses to each passenger.

That’s why at many airlines employees are given secondary emergency response jobs.

“Internally there are very complicated crisis PR plans (where) they mobilize the entire team to take action for families and victims,” she says.

For instance, a switchboard operator at the airline may take the role of emergency paramedic for minor injuries or hand out blankets.

“In incidents like these there’s never going to be enough ambulances or paramedics,” she says. “But if, for a few hours or a few days, your staff can turn into alternate jobs and represent the airline – it’s pretty comforting for the victims.”

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