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Sun and Fun

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Dennis Flamini

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Sun and Fun midair.jpg










Lots of times we do not hear the results of midairs, we were there in 2002;
LAKELAND -- The widow of a pilot killed in April 2002 in a midair crash on the eve of the Sun ’n Fun Fly-In has settled her lawsuit against the Federal Aviation Administration and Sun ’n Fun.

The FAA paid Deborah Morrison $650,000, and Sun ’n Fun’s insurance carrier paid $50,000, Sun ’n Fun’s lawyer John Wendel said.

Her federal lawsuit blamed air traffic controllers for the death of her husband, Jerry Morrison, 63, at Lakeland Linder Regional Airport.

The city relinquishes air traffic control for nine days to the FAA during each yearly fly-in.

Morrison was killed on April 5, 2002.

In steady air traffic, Morrison approached for his landing at the airport in his home-built RV-6A. Stephen Pierce, who was flying a Piper PA-16, approached for landing at the same time. Both men flew to Sun ’n Fun from their home cities in Texas.

The planes collided somewhere between 50 and 100 feet above the ground, according to witnesses, with the propeller of the PA16 hitting the cockpit of Morrison’s RV-6A. Both plans went down; Morrison was killed, and Pierce suffered serious injuries.

Air traffic controllers told investigators that both pilots failed to heed commands from the air traffic control tower that would have prevented the accident.

The National Transportation Safety Board, which investigated the accident, determined that Pierce failed to “maintain a visual lookout and to yield right-ofway to a lower airplane while on final approach resulting in a midair collision.”

The NTSB report said the failure of both pilots to adhere to air traffic control instructions contributed to the accident.

Deborah Morrison sued the FAA, Sun ’n Fun, Pierce and the city.

The city was dismissed from the suit, Wendel said, and Pierce settled for an undisclosed amount of money.

Wendel said Sun ’n Fun’s insurer paid the $50,000 strictly as a business decision. He said it would have cost more than that to take the case to trial.

“Sun ’n Fun, throughout, has denied any responsibility whatsoever,” Wendel said. “Sun ’n Fun does not do anything at all to control air traffic.”

Attempts to reach someone at the FAA to comment on the settlement were unsuccessful.
 

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