Four elementary school teachers are suing Delta Air Lines for a fuel dump that showered them with jet fuel.
California Teachers Sue Delta
Claiming “emotional and physical distress” because the pilots did not follow protocol, four female elementary school teachers are suing Delta.
Speaking for the teachers at a press conference on Friday, infamous attorney Gloria Allred pummeled Delta:
“Without any true necessity, the Delta pilot of Flight 89 caused the plane to release what are believed to be thousands of pounds of fuel per second over the city of Cudahy, Calif., and areas under its flight path. At the time, Flight 89 was flying so low that the fuel it was releasing did not have time to evaporate or dissipate before hitting the ground below.”
Allred further cited potential harms that comes from jet fuel, including:
- liver damage
- decreased immune response
- impaired performance on neurological function tests
- impaired hearing
Lawsuit: ATC Audio Is Smoking Gun
The problem, clams the lawsuit filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, is that the fuel dump was totally unnecessary to protect the passengers onboard the Boeing 777-200 or even the aircraft itself. In fact, the pilot of flight 89 even told Air Traffic Control that no fuel dump would be necessary.
ATC: “OK, so you don’t need to hold to dump fuel or anything like that?”
Delta Pilot: “Negative.”
Instead, jet fuel was dumped over a densely-populated neighborhood of South Central Los Angeles at a flight level of only 2,300 feet.
Dozens of people, including over 20 children, were treated by paramedics for minor injuries.
One teacher who is suing explained the emotional distress, claiming she thought Los Angeles was under a terrorist attack, telling the Los Angeles Times:
“I thought it was raining, and then I caught [the] scent of fuel”
“All I could think of was making sure my students were safe and to calm their fears, as they were scared and crying. Soon after, my head began to hurt and I started feeling nauseous. I couldn’t smell anything other than gas. I couldn’t taste anything other than gas.”
Delta declined to comment about the lawsuit.
CONCLUSION
The lawsuit is hardly unexpected and I suspect it will be the first of many. As I wrote last week, Delta still owes us an explanation for why this fuel dump occurred. It’s continued silence is not helpful.
> Read More: What Really Happened To Prompt Rapid Delta 777 Fuel Dump Over Los Angeles?
image: BriYYZ / Flickr CC 2.0
The teachers better quit school and sit at home acting all depressed to show harm done.
I wonder if these four teachers also belong to the membership-optional out of control teachers union that is attempting to remove/deny Proposition 13 protections of commercial real estate owners in California?
Frankly, I’m surprised that up until the DL incident that those who live/work underneath the flight paths into LAX have not sued for none other than noise pollution and the incremental effects of fan jet engine pollution that impacts those in these very lower income areas with continuous flight after flight that occurs day after day, month after month and year after year.
The affected schools and surrounding neighborhoods (city of Cudahy, etc.) from the most recent DL incident are some of the poorest per capita within the Los Angeles area. Cudahy itself is relatively small and very densely populated.
I’m not saying the action of the DL pilots was correct, rather these neighborhoods have been impacted by incoming (and the occasional outbound flights) for decades. These neighborhoods have a much higher concentration of pollution and toxic wastes as compared to other areas of Los Angeles. The residents have lived underneath the jets for many years, many their entire lives – and most likely due to their own economic circumstances cannot move elsewhere.
SO_CAL_RETAIL_SLUT
Some compensation is due, not sure how much. My boss thinks that the pilots were going through a pre-landing checklist and it said fuel dump and so they did.
The health of children should not have been put at risk but this clueless clown. I would advocate for a brief term of imprisonment for the pilot ( 3 months), plus multi-million $ fine for Delta.
They need to understand they can’t spray fuel over poor people ( indeed on anyone), for no good reason, with impunity.
Delta doesn’t fly the 777-300ER…
777-200.
This was done for the safety of the passengers on board. If over 150 passengers had died due to a fuel fire breaking out, we would be having a different conversation. These teachers are doing nothing but grandstanding.
Not to mention the people on the ground that could have died from impact!
Then Delta needs to come out and say that this was necessary to prevent a likely fire. As of now, all we know is that the pilot said he didn’t need to dump fuel, fuel dumps normally only happen when the plane doesn’t need to get on the ground immediately, and almost all cases of fuel dumping/burning is just to get the plane down to MLW so they don’t need to do a detailed inspection after an overweight landing.
Has anything come out that would make it seem the fuel dumping was required due to an imminent emergency? I haven’t seen anything.
He could have dumped it over the pacific or at a higher altitude
Also, this was one of your shoddier neighborhoods of Los Angeles. Good thing it did not happen over Western Estates or my husband Steve, who runs a wildly successful landscaping company, would have been very angry.
Well, that didn’t take long… ::eyeroll::
Welcome to litigious ‘Merica
Anyone who hires Gloria Allred has ZERO credibility.
A lawsuit is/was all but inevitable. Fortunately/thankfully, it seems no one was smoking when the fuel landed on them. Wonder if the teachers suing only for themselves (as plaintiffs) or for the children/students also?
Jet fuel is pretty hard to light up. Throw a match into a can of fuel and it wouldn’t burn.
Anyone else find the teacher quotes above being a bit ridiculous? A terrorist attack? Really?
Yep. How a teacher can’t distinguish between such an event and fuel being dumped by a jumbo jet commercial airliner that just flew overhead is ridiculous. Anyone who is 10 years old has seen a movie or tv show with a fuel dump. Teachers often exaggerate about everything because that is how they get their high salaries and great pension plans and life long jobs (teachers’ union) by telling kids from 5 up and their parents and the public how important education is when most of what they teach is useless in real life, a lot of it is biased and in 2020 vast stores of knowledge are available with a click or touch in seconds from the comfort of your own home. The reason everything is so expensive is because of the legal industry (industrial complex) where things that deserve minor compensation are pushed and pushed to drain the pockets of companies.
Wow. We just disregard the facts which show that teachers are low paid, and then pay from their own salaries to have teaching aids etc in their classrooms?
“Delta still owes us an explanation for why this fuel dump occurred.”
Let me provide the explanation for you and for them.
Pilots do what they can to ensure the safety of passengers. Dumping fuel, even at low altitude, presents little to zero actual risk. Landing with a full fuel load presents a high risk. Pilots did the right thing, and they should be thanked. They were pretty busy at the time with critical tasks (and flying on their last working engine). Lots of lives at stake, both on board, and on the ground. Perhaps they could have managed communications a bit better, but they were busy flying the plane and trying to0 save a lot of lives (the axiom is “aviate, navigate, communicate” in other words, fly the damn plane and worry about other less important stuff afterwards). What they did was appropriate and no sanction against them, or against Delta, is reasonable. Would it have been better if the plane crashed on that school in a huge fireball? Teachers and others complaining are complete idiots and should STF up.
There’s your explanation. You’re welcome.
Did the teachers tell their student to run inside and wash up? If not, the teachers are idiots.
To: Dick Bupkiss- Your explanation Mr. Bupkiss, was essentially bupkis. According to the Captain of that Delta flight, (his recorded conversation with ATC), he did not declare an emergency, and in fact told ATC that he would not be dumping fuel. Thus, his aircraft was not in any imminent danger of crashing. He/she decided for whatever reason to dump fuel, on his final approach to LAX. It is incredible at this point, with various concerns by numerous aviation experts, being raised, that the Captain and First Officer, will escape this investigation with clean hands. They will in all probability, be criticized by the NTSB in its final report. In fact, at this point, the crew has not even been interviewed in public, nor have their identities even been released. If they were so heroic in safely landing that plane, how come they are not receiving accolades?