Attorney For Passengers Says They Were 'Traumatized' By The Gear-Up Landing

At the time, the pilot of a LOT Boeing 767 which executed a perfect gear-up landing in Warsaw was hailed as a national hero for making the landing with no loss of life. But now, an attorney has filed a lawsuit against Boeing and the Mach II Maintenance in New York ... the facility where the airplane was serviced ... saying that the passengers on board suffered "severe emotional trauma" thinking they would lose their lives in the crash.

Bloomberg Business Week reports that the suit was filed in Cook County Circuit Court in Chicago, where Boeing is based. The suit claims that the 767-300 was leaking hydraulic fluid due to a design flaw, and that the MRO facility should have detected the leak but did not. It further claims that the backup system failed most likely because of a mis-set circuit breaker, and that the airplane's checklist does not tell pilots how to deal with a malfunction of the alternative landing gear system.

Some 80 passengers are named as plaintiffs in the suit. Their attorney says they suffered severe psychological trauma as the pilot told them they would be forced to make the gear-up landing. Attorney Floyd Wisner said people were texting family members to say goodbye, and now were suffering "classic post-traumatic stress disorder."

Boeing told Bloomberg Business Week it does not comment on pending litigation. Mach II Aviation did not respond to a message left Friday, the publication said.

(YouTube video image from file)

FMI: www.boeing.com