Accuse Boeing, P&W, And Airline Of Negligence

Seven survivors of the 2005 downing of a TANS Peru airliner in the Amazon, and the father of a six-month-old baby killed in the accident, are suing Boeing, engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney, and Peruvian airline TANS for liability, negligence, and wrongful death.

The lawsuits allege the Boeing 737-200 that went down August 23, killing more than 40 onboard, was "unreasonably dangerous," as the plane was not capable of flying safely in the severe weather that led the plane's flight crew to attempt an emergency landing.

The Associated Press reports the lawsuits -- filed by the Nolan Law Group in Cook County Circuit Court, as Boeing is based in Chicago -- state the aged airliner was defective because it was "incapable of continued safe flight in tropical environments in which clouds contained high liquid water content," and that Boeing and Pratt & Whitney were negligent in reporting such a performance limitation to the airline.

The lawsuit also claims that the wind shear detection system in the 737-200 failed -- a system one lawyer said federal authorities had found problems with before, in an accident nine years earlier -- and that TANS did not properly train its pilots to handle such an emergency.

As Aero-News reported last August, TANS Peru Flight 204 was flying from the Peruvian capital of Lima to the Amazon city of Pucallpa when it went down in bad weather. It was the second fatal accident for that airline in as many years.

Representatives with Boeing... TANS... and Pratt & Whitney either declined comment, or were unavailable on Wednesday.

FMI: www.boeing.com, www.tansperu.com.pe/index10.html, www.pw.utc.com