Collins' wife files lawsuit over crash

By Robert McCoppin

June 14, 2000 Web posted at: 10:26 AM EDT (1426 GMT)

CHICAGO (Daily Herald) -- The widow of radio host Bob Collins filed a wrongful death suit Monday, saying she hoped to prevent the kind of mid-air plane crash that killed her husband.

The suit by Christine Collins blames air traffic controllers, a student pilot, and the student's flight instructors, including an instructor who spoke to the student just before the crash. Attorneys said Christine Collins, who spoke publicly about the crash for the first time Monday, wanted a fair investigation before deciding whether to file suit.

"Safety was always such a priority to Bob Collins," Christine Collins said, reading from a prepared statement. "The terrible accident that occurred on Feb. 8 is a tragedy for all parties involved. Adding to the tragedy is the fact that the accident was an avoidable event. It is my hope that this lawsuit will raise the level of aviation safety and insure that accidents such as this will be eliminated."

The suit names as defendants student pilot Sharon Hock; her flight school, American Flyers Inc.; Midwest Air Traffic Control Service Inc., which directs air traffic at Waukegan Regional Airport; and controller Gregory Fowler. The suit charges that Scott Chomicz, working for American Flyers, instructed and directed Hock just before the crash over Zion.

Attorney Robert Clifford said he did not know what the instructor said, but accused American Flyers of failing to tell Hock how to give the controller her proper location and how to keep a safe lookout. Like the driver of a car, Collins had the right-of-way, Clifford said, because he had been authorized to make a final approach to land."Bob Collins did nothing wrong that day," Clifford said."And Bob Collins had every reason to believe his path was clear for an authorized landing, and that if there was other traffic in the area, that traffic would have lined up behind him as it should have, and permitted him to land uneventfully. This event could have been avoided completely."

The pilots involved in the crash may not have seen each other because of the design of their planes and their relative position, Clifford said.The wing of the Cessna 172 that Hock was flying sits above the cockpit, restricting upward visibility, while the Zlin 242L carrying Collins and his Mettawa neighbor, fellow pilot Herman Luscher, had wings below the cockpit, restricting Collins' downward view.

A preliminary investigation indicated Collins was approaching Waukegan Regional Airport for landing when Hock turned into the landing path, and the planes collided, killing everyone on both planes. The suit blames Hock for flying into Collins' flight path. In contrast, an earlier suit by Hock's family blames Collins for failing to watch out for Hock. Both suits blame Midwest Air Traffic Control and controller Fowler, claiming they failed to do their part to keep the planes separated. The analogy to driving a car is flawed, Hock attorney Tilden Katz said, because in this case there was a third party, the air traffic controller, telling the drivers what to do, somewhat like a police officer directing traffic.

The dueling cases in Cook County Circuit Court likely will be combined, and a jury probably will decide how much each party should share the blame, DePaul University law Professor Stephan Landsman said. Preliminary findings by the National Transportation Safety Board ruled out weather and mechanical failure factors and focused on human error. Attorneys will be able to use federal investigators' factual findings, expected before the end of the year, but will not be able to use the NTSB's conclusion about what caused the crash.

Following the accident, Federal Aviation Administration officials initially said Waukegan Regional Airport did not qualify for getting a $40,000 radar system. But after a federal investigator said radar might have helped prevent the crash, and after great public pressure, FAA officials agreed to install radar system. It is scheduled to be running by Aug. 1.

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