Damage Suit
A major Korean law firm is looking into suing Boeing and the US federal government for damages on behalf of the Korean victims in the Asiana crash.
“The landing accident and the exacerbation of losses for the passengers were due to manufacturing defects of the aircraft. We are consulting Korean victims and once the delegation is finalized, we will file a lawsuit in the San Francisco federal court against Boeing next month,” said Jong-sun Ha, lawyer at Barun Law LLC, on September 24.
No Korean passenger has taken legal action in the US against Boeing or the US federal government regarding the Asisana crash.
“The economy class only had lap seat belts that go over the waist, eventually resulting in passengers injuring their heads and spinal cords,” said Ha. “In a US product liability lawsuit against a carmaker, lap seat belts were already found to be defective. It has been ten years since seat belts in all seats were switched to three-point seat belts,” he explained.
Furthermore, one of the emergency slides failed to properly deflate outside the plane and inflated within the cabin. The aircraft also did not have equipment that creates audible warnings to the pilots in the event of abnormally low speed and altitude. These can be argued as aircraft defects.
They will also seek reparations from the US federal government which manages the San Francisco Airport for the error by the air traffic controller who did not warn the pilots at all until seven seconds prior to the accident.
However, some legal experts point out that it is difficult to prove manufacturing defects, and that it is more realistic to sue Asiana Airlines in Korea.