A Washington state jury awarded $16.9 million to the family of a man who died in a 2019 airplane crash on Unalaska’s runway.
After a six-week trial and about three days of deliberation at a Kent, Washington courthouse, jurors found Peninsula Aviation Services, Inc. liable for the death of David Oltman of Washington.
Miller, Weisbrod, Olesky, Attorneys at Law — the Texas-based firm representing Oltman — said the case marks the nation’s first fatal commercial airline crash trial in more than a quarter of a century.
PenAir’s Saab 2000 airplane with about 40 passengers, including 38-year-old Oltman landed in Unalaska almost exactly six years ago, overrunning the short runway and sliding into ballast rocks overhanging the harbor.
Shrapnel from a propeller flew into the cabin, fatally wounding Oltman. Nine others were injured. Oltman was traveling from his home in Wenatchee, Washington to Unalaska and purchased his flights through Alaska Airlines.
After a two-year investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board, investigators found faulty wiring, lax oversight by regulators and inexperienced crew to blame. Specifically, officials said the probable cause of the accident was bad wiring of an antiskid brake system that likely sent the plane over the runway, and happened during a previous overhaul.
According to the report, PenAir’s flight crew knew a significant tailwind was present at the time, and a landing in the opposite direction of the flight crew’s approach that day would have favored the wind pattern.
Now, a jury says the company that provided the overhaul and cross-wired the brakes is partially responsible for the incident, but PenAir is mostly at fault and owes the family for their negligence, according to the firm’s press release.
