Federal investigators are expected to arrive at the scene of a deadly plane crash during a Reno air show last week that killed at least nine people. They are looking for clues to why a vintage plane crashed close to spectator stands, killing the pilot and at least eight of the spectators. Dozens of people at the scene were also injured in the plane crash.

The crash took place at the National Chairmanship Air Races in Reno, Nevada, which is a huge local attraction, drawing crowds of thousands every year. The crash occurred on Friday afternoon, while spectators were watching the show. One of the planes went out of control and nosedived into the ground. The plane crashed into the seating area near the main grandstand. At least fifty people are confirmed to have been injured, fifteen of them critically wounded. The number of fatalities is likely to increase. The organizers canceled the rest of the show.

The pilot has been identified as 74-year-old Jimmy Leeward, a local real estate developer. He was a veteran of the event, and had more than thirty years of flying experience. The plane was a P-51 Mustang, dating back to World War II. According to friends, Leeward was a trained and skilled pilot, and had experience doing stunt flying for movies.

Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board have already set off for the scene. They currently believe that the crash was likely the result of mechanical problems that might have caused the plane to go out of control.
This is the latest in a series of disasters at air shows that California plane crash lawyers have come across this year. In August, a stunt involving a plane-to-helicopter jump went horribly wrong when the one of the stuntmen felt about 200 feet and died. Just days earlier, a pilot was killed in a palne crash at an air show in Kansas City.

Increasingly automated cockpits have eroded pilots flying skills to the extent that many of them don't know how to recover from midflight problems. In fact, situations where pilots have been unable to manually recover from such problems are fast becoming extremely common.

According to the International Air Transport Association, there have been at least 51 loss of control accidents recently, in which planes were found to be in challenging situations from which pilots simply could not recover. As some pilots have put it, pilots are “forgetting how to fly.”

The Federal Aviation Administration and California plane crash lawyers have been warning about something like this for a while now. Recently, the FAA's advisory committee warned that the opportunities available for airline pilots to practice manual flying skills have been dramatically reduced. In fact, many airlines and even federal safety regulators prohibit pilots from taking the plane off auto pilot and flying manually.

Even though international plane crash rates have dropped over the past decade, many in the industry believe that an entire generation of pilots, who depend too heavily on automation and cannot rely on their own skills, is the number one aviation safety problem of the future. There have been far too many incidents involving pilots who found themselves in challenging situations, and had no knowledge about how to extricate themselves and the plane from the situation. Even when pilots try to respond to situations, many of them make serious errors.

There is a serious danger from becoming too dependent on aviation technology. Automated systems are heavily integrated in modern cockpits. As a result, a malfunction in a small piece of equipment somewhere can trigger a series of mishaps that can lead to an airplane crash. The only way that many of these glitches can be overcome is if the pilot has been trained to use manual techniques recover from the problem.

It makes little sense to California plane crash lawyers to construct a garbage transfer facility near LaGuardia just a couple of years after a plane that took off from LaGuardia suffered a bird hit and had to make a emergency landing. Yet that is exactly what the New York City is planning.

The proposed garbage transfer facility, the North Shore Marine Transfer Station, is located just half a mile from LaGuardia Airport. Opposition to the facility is running high, and not just from California plane crash attorneys. Capt. Chesley Sullenberger, the pilot of the U.S. Airways Plane that made the crash landing in the Hudson River, has been vocal in his criticism of this dangerous idea.

A garbage transfer facility so close to the airport would increase the population of birds in the area, increasing the risk to planes that take off from LaGuardia. Authorities expect tons of garbage to be headed to the facility, and the risk that birds will be sucked into plane engines, thus increasing crash risks, are simply too high to ignore.

According to city officials critics are simply trying to scare people. Authorities say they will make the transfer facility “less attractive” for avian visitors. How they propose to do this has not been made clear. It might take more than a few strategically placed scarecrows to keep birds away from a monumental garbage dump.

Fortunately, critics of the project have not been silent. They have filed an appeal in a federal court to stop construction of the North Shore Marine Transfer Station.

A lesser-known, but widely prevalent practice of leasing older, battered and used airplanes to airlines in developing countries increases crash risks and endangers passengers on these planes.  However, leasing companies have recently found that they can't easily escape liability in a crash involving a leased plane.

A prime example is the Air Philippines plane crash in 2000 that killed 101 people.  The plane in that case, a Boeing 737-200 had earlier been used by Southwest Airlines, which operated the aircraft for more than twenty years.  As an aviation attorney, I had represented some of the plaintiffs in that case.  The Boeing 737-200 was due for a C-4 check, which is a complete overhaul of the plane.  This is an expensive procedure, and Southwest Airlines decided not to go with it.  The plane was decommissioned, and moved to a yard in Arizona. 

From there, the plane was picked up by an aircraft leasing company, AAR Corp, and was ultimately leased to Air Philippines.  That airline simply performed some basic repairs on the plane, before putting it back in operation.

As it came out during the case, the aircraft's physical condition had much to do with the crash.  There were several things wrong with the plane when it left the U.S.  To make matters worse, the leasing company never bothered to check whether the airline had the ability or resources to maintain or operate such a worn out aircraft.  The plaintiffs sued AAR, the only American company that they could sue, and the company agreed to a $165 million settlement.

Leasing companies have also been named in lawsuits filed in the 2009 Yemenia Air plane that killed 150 people.  The plaintiffs in that case have already filed a lawsuit against International Lease Finance Corp.  Another plane crash involving Air India Express last year could also possible be traced to a leasing company.

An aviation safety incident last week at New York's JFK airport has left California plane crash lawyers and passengers asking questions about the role of air traffic controller/pilot error, super-sized jumbo jets and a host of other aviation safety issues.  The National Transportation Safety Board has already begun an investigation into the incident in which an Airbus struck a smaller plane as it taxied passed the plane.

The Airbus A380 was taxing down the runway at John F. Kennedy International Airport, when the plane struck the left horizontal stabilizer of a Comair plane.  The impact sent the smaller Bombardier CRJ -700 spinning, and left the rudder, the horizontal tail and vertical fin of the smaller aircraft damaged.  There were a total of 52 passengers and four crewmembers on board Comair flight 293, and 485 passengers and 25 crewmembers on board the Airbus.  Fortunately, none of the passengers reported any injuries.

According to the passengers of the Comair flight, they suddenly felt the plane shuddering violently, and spinning around.  All passengers were then instructed to evacuate the plane immediately.  The National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration have both begun investigations into the incident.  The full-scale investigations will include interviews with both the pilots of the plane and air traffic controllers as well as ground crew at the airport.

Investigators are specifically looking at whether there was a communication problem between the pilots and air traffic controllers.  Besides, investigators are also likely to focus on whether the size of the Airbus jumbo jet was an issue here.  Most airports around the country don't allow the Airbus A380 because the aircraft doesn't fit into the airport.