April 24, 2003
A St. Clair County, Illinois, jury awarded $3 million to the family of a pilot who was killed in an airplane crash when a United Express Beech 1900c, collided with a Beechcraft King Air A90 at the intersection of runways 4 and 13 at Quincy’s Baldwin Field on November 19, 1996. Both pilots and the ten passengers aboard the United Express aircraft, as well as the two pilots on the King Air, died as a result of the airplane crash.
David E. Rapoport and Paul D. Richter of Rapoport Weisberg & Sims P.C. represented the family of the King Air pilot that was awarded damages in this aviation negligence case. After the verdict, Mr. Rapoport commented that “this crash would not have happened if the United Express flight crew had followed the standard pattern approach to the active runway and the King Air pilot in command had not decided to take off 24 seconds before the crash with another aircraft on short final approach to a conflicting runway.
The Great Lakes crew pushed its way in by choosing to land on an intersecting runway even though it was known that two other aircraft were taxiing and intending to take off on the active runway, and one had announced it was taking that runway for takeoff. They both cut it too close.”
Rapoport Weisberg & Sims P.C. is a personal injury law firm based in Chicago, Illinois. The personal injury attorneys at Rapoport Weisberg & Sims P.C. have achieved multimillion-dollar verdicts and settlements for individuals with lawsuits arising from medical malpractice, product liability, semitruck and motor vehicle accidents, workplace injuries and construction accidents in Illinois and Wisconsin. Rapoport Weisberg & Sims P.C.’s premier aviation negligence lawyers represent victims of commercial and general aviation disasters nationwide.
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