Four passengers are suing RED Air for the MD-82 crash-landing at Miami International Airport
Plane that crash-landed at Miami airport had previous landing gear problems, lawsuit says. Four passengers are suing discount Dominican carrier RED Air after they say last week’s crash-landing at Miami International Airport caused them “fractured bones, orthopedic injuries, spine damage, and psychological injuries.”
The lawsuit was filed Tuesday night, more than a week after Flight 203 crash-landed at the airport because of a landing gear malfunction. The MD-82 passenger jet skidded off a runway, the wing erupting in flames. Three people were injured among the 130 passengers and 10 crew members aboard.
The lawsuit also alleges that the aircraft’s service and maintenance logs show “several prior incidents” involving the landing gear “breaking, cracking, not extending, structurally failing, or not functioning properly.”
“We have seen firsthand the severity of their injuries and trauma. We believe this was a preventable incident for which RED Air needs to be held accountable,” Miami attorney Kent Burlington, of the firm Goldberg & Rosen, said in an email. “The hard, violent landing, and landing gear failure should not have occurred on this commercial flight.”
According to the complaint, RED Air’s flight crew “failed to take actions to evacuate passengers in a timely and safe manner, and chaos broke out as the terrified passengers rushed to free themselves through an exit door.”
RED Air, which began operations late last year, also failed to hire pilots with enough experience and skill, according to the suit.
The passengers suing: Tamar Kalach, Sarkis Okhdjian, and cousins Anabella Perez, 15, and Camila Destefano, 19.
Perez told WSVN-7 that she blacked out while trying to exit on the plane’s emergency slide, and she woke up on the grass by the runway. She believed the plane was going to explode.
“I was just dragging myself with my hands, trying to drag myself through the grass, just trying to get away from the plane, because I was like, a few feet away from it since I fell from it,” she said.
Perez suffered a torn ACL and meniscus, and fractured her tibia.
It was unclear Thursday if RED Air has retained attorneys yet. In a statement after the crash, RED Air said the plane “had technical difficulties after landing” but did not provide additional details. “At RED Air we express our absolute solidarity with the passengers and crew of the aircraft,” the airline’s statement said.
RED Air is a low-fare airline based in the Dominican Republic that launched in November 2021 and, for now, only flies between its home base in Santo Domingo and Miami International Airport. Hours after the June 21 crash, a RED Air mechanic told the Miami Herald he suspected pilot error, saying the landing gear had been properly maintained.
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the crash, which caused the shutdown of two of the airport’s runways. Yahoo.com