Backlash from a fatal 1999 crash at a Washington State fly-in has led to cancellation of a Texas fly-in and to the US Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) ending blanket insurance coverage for eight regional events.
Responsibility and accountability are behind the changes announced by Oshkosh-based EAA, which will no longer lend its name to fly-ins hosted by member chapters in a move that heads off a hike in insurance rates.
EAA is appealing the $10.5 million December 2006 court ruling awarded to the family of pilot Donald Corbitt seven years after his Vans RV-6A crashed at the Arlington Fly-In in Washington. The jury ruled that organisers had failed to provide adequate fire protection when Corbitt died in a fire that engulfed his aircraft on impact.
Each fly-in reimbursed EAA for their share of insurance, but in future will contract with carriers separately as EAA distances itself from events that it does not organise. "EAA is still associated with those fly-ins just through inference, even though EAA doesn't have any operational oversight over them," says the EAA's Dick Knapinksi. Without the changes, Knapinski says EAA could suffer an insurance increase at "everything from Young Eagles to the B-17 tour to [the annual convention in Oshkosh] to the museum".
The fly-in based in Hondo, Texas, is shutting down, as a letter to exhibitors explains. "The board felt that losing the EAA brand would make it increasingly difficult to obtain sponsors, exhibitors, and volunteers," organisers wrote.
Most fly-ins say they will continue as planned, but are concerned. The Southeast Regional Fly-In has a lot of numbers to crunch at its annual meeting in January, according to board member Jerry Poltorak. "When we first started [in 1991] we thought $4,000 was a terrible price to pay for liability insurance, and this last year we paid more than $20,000. That's a lot of people walking in the gate at $5 a head to make up."
Ian Templeton, president of the Mid-Eastern Regional Fly-In, is confident that rates will rise when they go it alone. "We're a small fly-in. If the liability is too much, we won't do it."
Source: Flight International
