Money-Hungry Lakeland Seeking More Than $16K For Damages
The City of Lakeland, FL has filed suit against pilot Terry
Edward Morris, who overturned his modified Glasair III (below)
while attempting to land at Lakeland Linder Regional Airport on
April 18, 2004 while participating in the annual Sun 'n Fun
airshow.
City Attorney Tim McCausland told the Lakeland Ledger newspaper
the city was suing Morris for the cost of cleaning up the accident
scene, including digging up soil contaminated by spilled avgas, and
of replacing a taxiway light taken out by the plane.
All told, according to Lakeland officials, the costs come out to
$16,283.44.
The city is justifying its suit against Morris based, in part,
on the NTSB Probable Cause report on the accident. The report
states the mishap was caused by the pilot's failure to maintain
airspeed and altitude while performing an attempted go-around, with
a contributing factor being Morris's failure to follow ATC
instruction.
According to the NTSB report and a story reported in
Aero-News, Morris misunderstood an ATC clearance
directing him to land on runway 9L, instead of 9R as he had
assumed. While attempting to sidestep over to the correct runway at
200 ft. MSL, the plane nearly stalled; while attempting to
recover, the Glasair's landing gear caught the right edge of
9L, causing the plane to roll off the edge of the runway and flip
over.
Lakeland's suit claims Morris was negligent in attempting to
land on the wrong runway.
In the NTSB report, Morris told investigators he had landed on
9R six times prior to the accident, and that he did not initially
realize that ATC instructions directing a "white low wing"
aircraft to land on 9L were for him.
Morris was unavailable for comment. Lakeland Assistant Attorney
Palmer Davis told the Ledger the pilot had not responded to letters
from the city prior to the suit being filed.
Editor-In-Chief
Note: It has been well documented, for many years, that
the arrival procedures for Lakeland-Linder Airport (whilst engaging
in the confusing and often dangerous maelstrom known as Sun 'n Fun)
are at best confusing and often downright unworkable. Hundreds of
pilots have complained about these procedures... some have
even died while attempting to execute them. It floors us to see the
City of Lakeland attempting to further victimize the pilot of an
aircraft involved in an accident, a guy who lost his carefully
crafted pride and joy (and nearly his life), and has definitely
suffered for the folly of trying to visit one of the most poorly
organized and executed aviation gatherings in the country (so say
we and a GREAT number of others).
We asked EAA if they had ever heard of Oshkosh doing something
like this to a pilot who had an accident at Wittman Field, and they
could not recall any such thing... but then again, we expect the
folks of Oshkosh to have a LOT more class than the
city fathers of Lakeland... who have shown a disturbing tendency
(in our opinion) to turn their back on hazards, dishonesty
and anything that doesn't seem to feed their wallets or their
egos.
If the situation at Sun 'n Fun wasn't bad enough, the greed,
arrogance and insulting behavior shown by the City of Lakeland
should suffice to keep many more people away from the
ever-declining mess that Sun 'n Fun has become. Come hell or high
water, they both seem to want your money... and if you have to
crash your airplane, they still seem to want your money. I
think it's time that we stop giving them our money and go
elsewhere.
There is good news, though... in a few days, we're finally going
to start talking about a project that may make this matter
moot. It seems that a great many people are as sick of this mess as
we are... and it seems that since Sun 'n Fun doesn't care to fix
itself, that a replacement is very much in order. Wait til you hear
what's about to happen...
MUCH more news to follow... -- Jim Campbell, ANN E-I-C