On October 29, 2004, three Madison County men were on a return flight from a hunting trip to South Dakota.  The airplane flown was a single-engine, six-seat Beech Bonanza.  The pilot and two passengers were enroute over Missouri at night when the aircraft entered a severe thunderstorm cell causing a loss of control and subsequent crash near Downing, Missouri.  All three men on board were killed.  The three men’s surviving family members brought  negligence claims against air traffic control under the Federal Tort Claims Act.

        The aircraft was on an FAA instrument flight plan and communicating with an air traffic controller in Kansas City when the crash occurred.  The pilot had previously been speaking with an air traffic controller in Minneapolis who had provided the pilot with weather information about the line of thunderstorms ahead and offered guidance to a break in the line over northern Missouri.  The precipitation associated with the thunderstorms were displayed on the controllers’ screens via a new technology called WARP (Weather And Radar Processor).  WARP data is taken from various surrounding NEXRAD radar sites with the precipitation shown in three colors on the controllers’ radar scopes:  light blue is moderate precipitation; checkered cyan is heavy precipitation; and cyan is extreme precipitation.  WARP, which was implemented in 2002, provided the controllers with information that was to be used to assist pilots in avoiding severe weather.

        Relying on the information provided by the Minneapolis controller, the pilot then proceeded into Kansas City airspace where a controller again provided navigation towards a hole in the line of storms. However, the next three Kansas City controllers did not provide sufficient weather information to the pilot, with one controller actually suggesting the pilot turn east which placed the aircraft on a path directly into a severe thunderstorm cell.  (See Fig. 2). Plaintiffs contended that the pilot thought he was still on a route of flight taking him through a hole in the weather, when he was instead proceeding directly toward an intense thunderstorm.

        Plaintiffs further contended that the Kansas City air traffic controllers watched the aircraft fly into heavy to extreme precipitation depicted on their radar screen, via WARP, without communicating to the pilot what lay ahead.   The controllers’ radar screens depicted the position of the aircraft and the graphic display of the heavy to extreme precipitation. The pilot, conversely did not have any weather radar on board, and was equipped with only a “Stormscope”, which is an onboard instrument capable of detecting lightning.

        Through the simulation created by Plaintiffs’ experts, the Plaintiffs were able to show that the controllers had a WARP weather radar depiction on their scopes showing the severe storms.  This was coupled with Plaintiffs’ allegations that the FAA Air Traffic Control Manual required the air traffic controllers to tell pilots about the intensity and position of weather on their radar screens.  Other alleged violations of the FAA manual occurred regarding the controllers’ position relief briefings and transferring of control of the aircraft to different Kansas City sectors.

        A settlement conference preceding a final PTC was conducted in Indianapolis by Magistrate Tim Baker in October of 2007.  Department of Justice attorney, Steven Kirsch, representing the United States was present along with all of the plaintiffs and representative attorneys.  A settlement for all three on board the aircraft was reached.