The passenger said being “suspended upside down” and “drenched with jet fuel” caused him “severe emotional distress and mental anguish.”
AUSTIN, Texas — An Austin man who survived the crash landing of a Delta plane in Toronto this week has filed a lawsuit against the airline.
Marty Lourens was on Delta Air Lines Flight 4819 from Minneapolis to Toronto. The Delta regional jet, a CRJ-900 aircraft operated by Endeavor Air, had a fiery crash landing at Toronto Pearson International Airport on Monday afternoon.
“He was on the left side as it was landing, so he went fully 360 degrees when the aircraft turned over on the runway,” Lourens’ attorney, Andres Pereira, said. “He got blunt force trauma as a result of the initial impact and the slowing down of the kinetic energy and the aircraft.”
As the plane landed in Toronto and the wheels hit the tarmac, video shows the landing gear appearing to collapse. The right wing hit the ground, sparking a wall of fire and causing the plane to flip onto its roof as it slid down the runway.
Pereira said Lourens ended up hanging upside down in the cabin, held on by his seatbelt.
“When he undid his belt, he landed on his head, falling from the seat onto the aircraft’s ceiling,” Pereira said.
All 80 passengers and crew survived the crash. First responders said 21 people were injured and taken to the hospital, including a child, but none had life-threatening injuries and all have since been released.
Pereira said Lourens suffered back, neck and facial injuries.
“When you’re in a car accident or any type of blunt force trauma like that, usually you tense up and your adrenaline starts to flow that fairly fast,” Pereira said. “Even though initially, you may not think that you’re injured, as the days have gone by, he feels more and more stiff and his back is hurting more and more from having fallen on the ceiling of the airplane.”
There were chaotic moments as passengers tried to get out of the burning plane. Pereira said Lourens helped open the emergency exit door.
“The flight attendant could not open the door from the inside to get out, so she asked him for his help because he’s a larger man. He was able to open the door to get out of the airplane,” Pereira said. “Once they got out, they turned around and went back. They didn’t get back into the airplane but assisted other passengers in getting out of the aircraft.”
It is not clear what caused the crash. On Thursday, Lourens filed a lawsuit against Delta and the subsidiary Endeavor Air, arguing the airline is culpable for the crash.
“Just watching the video, it looks like the pilot plowed the airplane into the runway and didn’t have a good landing,” Pereira said. “Because he works for Delta, that would make Delta negligent for his conduct or her conduct.”
The airline released additional details about the pilots on Thursday in response to what it called disinformation and “false and misleading assertions about the flight crew” on social media.
Delta said the captain had worked for Mesaba Airlines, a progenitor company of Endeavor Air, since October 2007. In addition to being a captain, the airline said he served in pilot training and flight safety capacities.
The first officer had been with Endeavor Air since January and completed training in April. The airline said she “exceeded the minimum requirements set by U.S. Federal regulations.” The airline said both crew members were qualified and FAA-certified for their positions.
“We don’t know who was flying the plane at that time, but we’re alleging negligence and strict liability,” Pereira said. “We think that it could be poor training. It could be a maintenance issue. It could be one of the aircraft subassemblies with some defect like the landing gear or tire or something like that could have been wrong with the aircraft.”
In the lawsuit, Lourens said the crash caused him “severe emotional distress and mental anguish.” The crash punctured the fuel tank in the wing, drenching Lourens and other passengers in jet fuel.
“He gets out of the aircraft soaked in jet fuel. The aircraft is on fire,” Pereira said. “You can imagine the trauma that that that caused.”
Lourens’ lawsuit accuses the airline of failing to uphold its duty to provide safe flights.
“Delta has a duty to employ qualified pilots who know how to fly their aircraft,” Pereira said. “If they had a pilot who had the duty to be a professional and fly properly, they breached that duty by not doing it, and it injured my client. Those are the elements for negligence.”
The lawsuit claims the crew “offered inadequate assistance and instructions or directions” during the evacuation.
“I don’t see anything that would point to an act of God or something a jet just fell out of the sky,” Pereira said. “Planes don’t crash for no reason. They crash because somebody cut corners, the training wasn’t adequate, the pilot’s skills weren’t adequate, or they just didn’t follow industry standards.”
International flights are subject to the Montreal Convention, which establishes international airline liabilities and allows passengers like Lourens to seek damages.
Delta has offered each passenger $30,000. The airline says, “No strings are attached, and it does not affect rights.”
Pereira said he called Delta multiple times on Friday to find out exactly what documentation the airline wants passengers to sign to receive the $30,000 payment. However, he said that would be just a start, and Lourens deserves more.
“His injuries and what he’s gone through are worth a lot more compensation than $30,000,” Pereira said.
Lourens is seeking damages for injuries, mental anguish and future medical costs.
“Not only is this costing him physically, because of the physical injuries, but it may also cost him his career because he may not be able to maintain the level of work that he needs to maintain to handle his position,” Pereira said.
Delta has not commented on the pending litigation.
Investigators from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and the FAA are still trying to determine what caused the crash landing.
Multiple other passengers have also filed lawsuits against Delta over this crash, including allegations that the pilots failed to monitor flight conditions on approach appropriately, failed to communicate and react in the cockpit to those flight conditions, the crew was not adequately trained and the airline failed to comply “with the most rudimentary cockpit resource management protocols.”