Court Opinion

ID: 9464141
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:25:56.640721+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:28.583477
License: Public Domain

*342JAMES C. HILL, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
In order for this court to affirm the award of damages based upon the alleged negligence of the defendant, we must find in the record sufficient evidence to support a finding that the defendant had a duty; that the duty was negligently breached; and that the breach was the proximate cause of the injury. Here, the United States, through its air traffic controllers, owed a duty to the deceased. Breach and causation were in dispute. Pretermitting a resolution of the question of breach, I do not find in the record any sufficient evidence of causation to support the award of damages.
Specifically, there is no evidence that the deceased’s aircraft (N100RC) encountered wake turbulence generated by Southern Airlines Flight 930 (SO930). Indeed, the evidence is that, physically, no such encounter could have taken place.
It is undisputed that when N100RC first came into view below the overcast, it was somewhere alongside the approach half of the runway. When it broke through the overcast and became visible to those on the grounds, it was at an altitude of at least 600 feet. At that point, the aircraft appeared to go out of control. Thus, the award of damages must have been based upon a finding that N100RC encountered wake turbulence generated by S0930 when it was 600 feet in the air over the approach half of the runway. The evidence is undisputed that, when SO930 had been within the confines of the first half of the runway, it was no more than 50 feet above the ground and, for most of the approach half of the runway, it was rolling on the ground.
To be sure, the expert testimony touching upon the dispersal of wing-tip vortices includes possibilities of aberrant behavior. Firm and undisputed testimony indicates that these “horizontal tornados” are created at the wing tips of the aircraft and that they tend to descend while moving apart, laterally. Wind conditions and other atmospheric conditions can change this dispersal pattern to some extent. I find in the record no competent evidence upon which a finding could have been made that N100RC could have encountered S0930’s vortices at a point 550 feet above the latter aircraft.
The evidence is undisputed that each of the two aircraft were supposed to follow the same glide path to the approach end of the runway. The physical facts make it abundantly clear that N100RC did not follow the glide path assigned. Had it done so, it could not have been 600 feet above the ground when it was over the approach half of the runway. It would have been at a few feet of altitude, measured in tens and not hundreds, when it crossed the threshold and would have been on the runway immediately thereafter. The evidence is silent as to why N100RC failed to fly the prescribed glide path. By failing to fly the prescribed glide path, it is possible that N100RC could have encountered turbulence produced by SO930 at some point. However, such an encounter would have been at a point long before it arrived at the touchdown end of the runway. Had it done so, with the tragic results contended, the encounter would have taken place in the overcast, not visible to the those on the ground.
Viewing the evidence most favorable to plaintiff-appellee, it showed that, for unknown reasons, N100RC did not fly the proper approach glide path for a landing at the airport and that, when it was more than 600 feet above its prescribed altitude, it went out of control and crashed. When the evidence offers no explanation for this sequence of events, the court must look to the rules of law allocating the burden of proof for determination as to which party shall prevail. The burden of proof in this case was upon the plaintiff to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the cause of the crash was the failure of defendant’s air traffic controllers to warn N100RC to be alert for the wing tip vortices created by S0930. For such causation to have been shown, the plaintiff was required to show that the crash resulted from an encounter with such vortices. The evidence failed to show this, leaving the cause of the crash a mystery. The plaintiff failed to carry the burden of proof. *343In Dickens v. United States, 545 F.2d 886 (5th Cir. 1977), a private, twin engine Excalibur aircraft was found by the District Court to have crashed as a result of encountering wake turbulence at an intersection where a commercial jet had previously crossed. The critical issue was whether or not the separation time between the landing aircraft was sufficient to have allowed the wake turbulence to have passed the intersection and thus be of no consequence to the private plane. The Government relied upon recorded tapes in attempting to show that the landings were in fact six minutes apart, a time generally agreed sufficient for the wake turbulence to dissipate. The plaintiffs relied upon eyewitness accounts that the landings were but three minutes apart and thus turbulence was still present and adversely affected the Excalibur’s landing. We held that the District Court was entitled under the law to credit the time estimates of the eyewitnesses over the separation time shown by the tape recordings covering the arrival of the two aircraft. Thus, there was evidence to support the trial court’s resolution of disputed facts and we affirmed.
Here, I find no genuine dispute in the evidence. If recovery is to be allowed in this case, then it must be concluded that, when any aircraft goes out of control at or near an airport at which another large airplane has recently landed, a finding that the loss of control resulted from wing tip vortices generated by the preceding aircraft would be proper. I cannot go that far. I would reverse.