The Federal Aviation Administration and the pilot of a small plane were equally to blame for a 1986 collision with an Aeromexico jetliner that killed 82 people, a federal jury decided Friday.
U.S. District Judge David V. Kenyon was to decide later in the day whether to uphold the jury's verdict, which absolved Aeromexico of any blame.The jury, which spent five months hearing testimony and deliberated for 46 hours over 10 days, found that the FAA and private pilot William Kramer were negligent and their negligence caused the crash in equal measure.
Damages will be decided at later trials or by settlement.
Attorney Joseph T. Cook, who had blamed FAA air traffic controller Walter White for the collision, said outside court, "I don't see the jury's verdict as critical of the air traffic control system, and I don't think we tried to criticize the system as a whole."
He said the accident was an isolated instance where the system failed.
Attorney Franklin Silane, representing Aeromexico, agreed.
"Overall, the traffic is safe in Los Angeles and the traffic controllers are good at the job," he said. "A mistake was made on that day."
The collision occurred in clear skies on Aug. 31, 1986, as the Aeromexico DC-9, with 64 people aboard, approached Los Angeles International Airport from the east at 6,500 feet.
Kramer, 53, with his wife and a daughter as passengers, was flying a single-engine Piper that slammed into the jet's tail and sent both aircraft plunging into the ground.
All aboard both planes and 15 people on the ground in suburban Cerritos were killed.
White, who was guiding the DC-9 to the airport, maintained the Piper did not appear on his radar screen. However, data tapes from the radar system did record the Piper's flight.
During the trial, expert witnesses testified that Kramer's plane was visible on the radar screen during 62 of 64 radar sweeps in the final minutes before the 11:52 a.m. collision in controlled airspace.