Mon, Apr 11, 2005
Billionaire Says Controllers Failed To Warn Son About Severe
Weather
Alan Ginsburg blames the FAA for the
death of his wife and son. Now, he wants the government to pay $30
million dollars in compensation. Ginsberg says controllers in South
Florida failed to warn Jeffrey Ginsburg of severe weather in his
path. Jeffrey and his mother, Harriett, were killed when the
aircraft went down September 24th.
The NTSB last year listed the probable cause for the accident as
the "pilot's continued path into known severe weather," even though
he had a working weather radar system on board his Piper Saratoga
(file photo of type, below). "Factors in this accident were heavy
thunderstorm, and failure of the FAA controllers to provide the
pilot [with] information on observed weather areas and...
forecasted adverse weather conditions," according to the
NTSB finding.
Ginsburg's suit against the FAA, filed last month, accuses
controllers Joseph E. Nelson and Pedro Gonzalez, along with
supervisor Mitten Swartzwelder, of "negligence and carelessness."
The suit is quoted in the Orlando Sentinel.
FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen won't comment on the pending
litigation. She told the Sentinel that both Nelson and Gonzalez are
still on the job. Swartzwelder has since retired, she said.
The NTSB has listed controller actions as contributing factors
in aviation accidents at least 36 times over the past five years.
But are they giving pilots wrong information?

"It's not so much erroneous as it is incomplete," said
Embry-Riddle Professor William Waldock, based at the school's
campus in Prescott, AZ. "Looking at it from both sides, the FAA
controllers didn't give him enough information," Waldock said. "But
at the same time, if he had an active [weather] radar on the
airplane, he should have seen the thunderstorm.... This is not
defending the FAA. A lot of times these [severe weather] situations
can change pretty fast."
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