A recent Robinson Helicopter crash has left its pilot hospitalized. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is investigating a helicopter crash that took place just after 6:30 a.m. on August 11, 2021 in Prospect Heights, Illinois. Unsurprisingly, the helicopter involved was an R44 manufactured by the Robinson Helicopter Company.

Thankfully, the pilot and sole occupant of this latest R44 crash survived the ordeal. Reports indicate that the pilot took off from Chicago Executive Airport around 6:39 a.m. and reported a mayday due to engine failure just one minute later.

The pilot told WGN News that the engine failed upon takeoff, and he implemented emergency procedures, which allowed him to do a running landing. The helicopter’s rotor hit a pole on the way down.

By: Timothy S. Tomasik and Eddie Hettel

Contrary to what airlines often assert, in many cases, victims of airline crashes can recover for both their physical injuries and the psychological injuries attributable to the crash. Under Article 17(1) of the Montreal Convention of 1999, a multilateral treaty concerning compensation for the victims of air disasters, psychological injury alone is not sufficient for a claimant to recover damages against an airline. However, courts have awarded damages for such injuries that are “traceable to” the crash itself, so long as a physical injury is also present.

Historically, courts required a mental injury to “flow from” a physical injury to be compensable. See Eastern Airlines v. Floyd, 499 U.S. 530 (1991) (passengers on flight with imminent belief of crash in Atlantic Ocean could not recover for mental injuries alone); see also In re Air Crash at Little Rock Arkansas, on June 1, 1999, 291 F.3d 503, 511 (8th Cir. 2002) (in accordance with the “flowing from” rule, plaintiff could only recover emotional damages which flowed from her physical injuries, not the incident itself). However, these cases were decided under the Warsaw Convention, the predecessor to the Montreal Convention.

Robinson Helicopter Company opened shop in 1973. Its business model: mass-produce simple, low-cost helicopters and sell them to the civilian public at an affordable price.

From a numbers standpoint, it worked.

Robinson released its first model, the R22, in the late 1970s, and it released the R44 in 1993. Both models dominated the competition and became the best-selling civilian helicopters of their time. The R44 retains that title to this day, partly due to its being one of the cheapest helicopters on the market.

By Tim Tomasik

Following the deaths of 157 people in the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines plane on March 10, 2019, Boeing is under scrutiny for potential design defects in 737 MAX airplanes. This was the second plane crash of a Boeing 737 MAX in less than six months; a Lion Air plane crashed in Indonesia in October 2018, killing 189 people.

While both crashes are still under investigation, it appears that a faulty flight safety system may be to blame for these incidents. An investigation by BEA, the French aviation bureau, found that there were clear similarities between both crashes, and the sensors and software which are intended to prevent stalls may have caused pilots to lose control of these planes.

An inbound United Airlines flight with 129 people on board slid off a runway at O’Hare International Airport Saturday afternoon according to the Chicago Fire Department. Shortly after the plane came to rest, Chicago Firefighters assisted in getting the passengers deplaned from the aircraft which had taken off from Phoenix hours earlier.

Although the Chicago Department of Aviation indicated other aircraft had landed safely on the runway just minutes before the attempted landing, snow had been falling for sometime after a winter storm descended upon Chicagoland Friday night and dumped five inches of snow on O’Hare by noon, according to the National Weather Service. At the time local media outlets reported the incident, Department officials indicated that it was in the process of working with United Airlines and City officials to recover the aircraft.

The past year has been chaotic for many passengers, including those who boarded an Aeromexico flight which crashed, injuring more than 80 people and sending dozens to the hospital. According to the BBC, there were twelve times as many plane crash fatalities in 2018 compared to 2017.