First lawsuit filed over Mandala crash with Chicago court
Apriadi Gunawan, The Jakarta Post, Medan
A lawyer from the Nolan Law Group announced on Thursday it had filed a lawsuit in a Chicago court over the Sept. 5 Mandala plane crash in Medan.
On Oct. 6, the Chicago-based firm was appointed by families of more than 100 crash victims, grouped in the Mandala Crash Victims' Families Association, to represent them in a lawsuit against U.S. aircraft manufacturer Boeing Co.
An attorney at the firm, Manuel von Ribbeck, said on Thursday that the legal process of the case had started on Wednesday with the filing of a petition for discovery, representing the heir of the late Regional Representatives Council member Abdul Halim Harahap and his wife, who died in the plane crash.
After filing the first case, he said that the firm would soon file another case representing the heir of the late Rahmat Purba. The families of the victims would file individual cases based on their individual losses.
He said the petition requested that the court order the defendant to immediately submit documentary evidence, such as files related to the aircraft's blueprint, as well as manufacturing and maintenance reports.
The petition's initial target, he said, would be United Technologies Inc., the company that designed and manufactured the Boeing aircraft that crashed in Medan, killing 102 people on board and 47 on the ground. Fifteen passengers survived the crash, the country's worst in eight years.
Ribbeck said that based on the results of an investigation, the Mandala plane had crashed due to control system failure. He said the team found no indication that bad weather had caused the tragic accident.
"The petition for discovery is an initial step to gather evidence. After gaining all the facts and important information to prove the error, we will come up with a strategy for court," von Ribbeck said in a press conference attended by family members of Mandala crash victims.
Abdul Hafiz Harahap, a brother of Abdul Halim Harahap, said his family had agreed to be the first to take legal action in the hope that the cause of the crash would be determined.
"That's why we want the Nolan Law Group to immediately file the lawsuit. We are afraid that evidence related to the crash might be 'made to disappear' by a certain group," Hafiz said.
A group of family members of other Mandala crash victims have also announced the appointment of New York-based law firm Speiser Krause, and S.L. MesoAmerica to represent them in their suit against Boeing.