Whats our legal liability?

[Boatman]

Having perused the post regarding the unfortunate atc's cm regarding the scottish incident. It caught my eye that it looks like he may be liable for some hefty legal fees.
Being relatively new to this game i wondered how financially liable a military pilot would be in having to defend him(her)self from any number of random incidents (insert "his aircraft scared my dog and it bit me, eversince that fateful day i have never been able to scratch my arse again") that could inspire harry civvie or his ilk to go for a no win no fee gambit against us.
This is also coupled with an offer of legal cover in the post from my kit insurer offering money incase someone under my command decides to sue me, as this leaflet implied they could personally sue in a civil court.
Any ideas?? or have there been posts about this before.

yours semenly

[short&shapeless]

Hi Boatman, certainly something to think on isn't it. I cannot offer any insight on most of what you asked for however, you would have to hope that the MOD would support it's own against any 3rd party liability claim.......but if they didn't and if they decided to bring charges of their own against you - potentially you are on your own I think.

What the deal is at the moment is that The MOD decide to prosecute you, they form the court and staff it with their personnel and they offer you more of their staff to defend you!

If you are a little sceptical of this and you decide (wisely in my view having been an Airmen's Friend on a number of occasions and seen DLS operate close up) to consider obtaining your own counsel then you actively give up the right to have your legal services funded. The view is the good old DLS was there for you, for free, but you turned your back on it.

I understand that this is the case win or lose, so as far as the MOD are concerned it is definitely a case of 'Heads we win, Tails you lose'!!

[KPax]

Oh mighty 'Short & Shapeless. Is your pointed finger still a lethal weapon. I was talking to a Rotary pilot recently who said that they envied the ATC involvement with GATCO. They were trying to get the same with BALPA but it was proving difficult.

[Dan Winterland]

Indeed. A military pilot could be held as responsible for an accident as his/her civilian counterpart in some circumstances. A civilian pilot would have cover from BALPA if they were a full member, which costs 1% of his/her annual salary.

[Whipping Boy's SATCO]

I though I would give an indication of the sort of trouble a pilot could find himself in.

When the Service was investigating the Ben McDui case they tried to find a similar circumstance under which charges may be raised. Some of us will remember a Hawk practice turnback that went wrong a few years back. In essence, the deal was that during a turnback a minimum speed (160kts?) was to be adhered to and "decision hgt" was to be 300ft. Unfortunately, niether of these criteria were met and the aircraft crashed on the undershoot. Immediately prior to impact the QFI ejected although the other pilot (a QWI student) remained in the ac and unfortunately perished in the ensuing fire.

I am led to beleive that, if this type of scenario occured again, the pilot would be charged under the same sections of the AFA (S49) as the military controller has been in Scotland.

Finally, I have to agree with KPax; at least us air traffikers have the ability to gain some sort of financial support from an external "union".

[Scud-U-Like]

Generally, you are indemnified by the MOD for any damage or loss you cause whilst carrying out your authorised duty. Should you, without lawful or reasonable excuse, deviate from that which you are authorised to do, you may well find yourself personally liable for your actions, under the criminal law, civil law or disciplinary regulations.

[idle stop]

You may, however, choose to take some insurance and join a non-union pilot organisation. The Independent Pilots' Association offers membership to serving military pilots and you can then join their legal insurance scheme. See www.ipapilot.com for details. They have recently set up an affiliated organisation, the IPF. The F is for Federation and they represent themselves as an alternate to BALPA. The IPF is, I believe, a voluntary add-on to your IPA membership; although there are extra subs it's less expensive than BAALPA and not so seemingly overconcerned with our National Carrier's people.

[Boatman]

Thanks for the replies although i still think there is scope out there to be shafted with a big bill, just hope lizzies purse strings are ready for me an my mates front line!! woohoo

[whowhenwhy]

Well I'm under no illusions what's going to happen to any of us should anything go wrong, ATC, aircrew etc. If anything goes wrong then generally it's because we didn't follow the letter of law passed down to us from our airships (leaving aside instances of flocks of gulls electing to fly down your intake!), and therefore we're at fault. If we're at fault then they're going to hang us out to dry. Picture the scene last year amongst Mil ATCO's when a letter was passed around that seemed to suggest that we should consider taking out third party liability insurance, in case anything happens while we're controlling. I can hear the insurance company now "Well sir, what are we talking about, worst case scenario style?" "Hmmmmmmm, well, if I wrap a fast jet around a B747 on an airway, that could be fairly bad!" How are we supposed to indemnify ourselves against that?