Long Beach, California – November 3, 2014 (Updated December 8, 2014)
Dozens of passengers who experienced an in-flight emergency aboard JetBlue Flight 1416 have retained the aviation law firm of Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman to represent them in their JetBlue lawsuit.
On September 18, JetBlue Flight 1416 departed from Long Beach Airport bound for Austin, Texas carrying 147 people. Roughly 20 minutes into the flight, passengers were startled by a loud bang. Smoke began to fill the passenger cabin while the Airbus A320 was thousands of feet over the Pacific Ocean. According to a JetBlue spokesperson, the plane’s right engine was lost and the pilots were forced to deploy extinguishers to put out a fire.
Panic ensued. The smoke was so thick that passengers had a hard time seeing the person sitting next to them. Many worried how they would be able to breathe if the smoke couldn’t be cleared from the plane. Passenger Jarrod West told CNN that oxygen masks didn’t fall from the ceiling as they normally do in cases of emergency, so flight attendants began to distribute them by hand.
The pilots made a hard turn and pointed the plane back to Long Beach. Some passengers were crying, others were praying while the plane began to shake. Flight attendants told those onboard to ‘brace, brace’ as the pilots were finally able set the aircraft down. The shaken passengers were able to breathe a sigh of relief as they evacuated the plane using emergency slides.
In the end, four people sustained injuries in the incident, including one who was hospitalized. For many on JetBlue Flight 1416, the damage has been long lasting, even in the weeks since the in-flight emergency. “I thought that was it,” said passenger Dean Delbaugh of the incident. His wife clung to him while the plane made its descent back to Long Beach. “I recited the Lord’s Prayer as I held my son and my wife in my arms,” said passenger Jackson Rathbone, an actor best known for his role in the movie ‘Twilight.’
After seeing the YouTube video, it’s clear that the passengers aboard JetBlue Flight 1416 went through an ordeal. The pilots didn’t deploy oxygen masks or take action to adequately address the lingering smoke that filled the passenger cabin as the plane returned to Long Beach Airport. Baum Hedlund attorneys recognize that landing safely was the first concern for JetBlue and the pilots of Flight 1416, but not clearing the smoke put passengers in danger.
The national aviation law firm of Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman is listed in The Best Lawyers in America®, 2014 Top Ranked Law FirmsTM, U.S. News & World Report Best Lawyers® 2014 Best Law Firms and in Martindale Hubbell’s Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers. The firm has handled the cases of over 600 passengers and crew in aviation crashes and incidents around the world. Of those, approximately 90 of the airline passengers we represented were involved in incidents that resulted in psychological trauma (but not always physical injuries) against such major airlines as JetBlue, Southwest Airlines, United Airlines, Continental Airlines, Delta Airlines, USAirways and China Eastern Airlines.
These are the previous cases we have handled where most of the passengers suffered psychological injuries. Some also suffered physical injuries:
5/4/1991 – USAir inflight emergency, Tampa, FL to Los Angeles
1/9/1992 – United inflight turbulence, Narita, Japan to San Francisco, CA
2/27/1992 – Delta inflight emergency, Tampa, FL to Los Angeles
4/6/1993 – China Eastern Airlines Flight 583, inflight dive, slat handle bumped, Shanghai to Los Angeles
5/21/1998 – Continental Airlines Flight 75, auto pilot inflight incident, Los Angeles to Honolulu
6/8/1998 – United Flight 81, inflight turbulence, LaGuardia to Los Angeles
3/5/2000 – Southwest Flight 1455, runway incident, Burbank, CA
12/8/2005 – Southwest Flight 1248, runway incident, Midway Airport, Chicago, IL
1/21/2008 – United Airlines Flight 1028, inflight turbulence over Nevada-Los Angeles to Chicago O’Hare
12/22/2009 – American Airlines Flight 331, runway incident, Jamaica
7/20/2010 – United Airlines Flight 967, inflight turbulence, from Washington, DC (Dulles) to Los Angeles
2/24/2011 – US Airways Flight 583 depressurization inflight incident, Phoenix, AZ to Spokane, WA
4/1/2011 – Southwest Airlines Flight 812, inflight fuselage rupture, Phoenix, AZ to Sacramento, CA.
Plane landed in Yuma, AZ, due to injuries
11/8/2011 – US Airways Flight 797, inflight incident – from Tel Aviv to Los Angeles
If you or someone you know was a passenger aboard JetBlue Flight 1416, you deserve compensation for what you went through on that flight. To learn more about your legal rights or to hire a highly experienced aviation law firm, contact the aviation attorneys at Baum, Hedlund Aristei & Goldman today for a free case evaluation.