TWA 514

TWA Flight 514 was a crash that occurred on December 1st 1974

about 25 miles northwest of the Washington DC Dulles Intl airport. The

NTSB has the role of investigating and determining what was the

probable cause of a crash. The NTSB has five Board Members,

nominated by the President/confirmed by the Senate/5-year terms.

Regarding TWA Flight 514, the NTSB determined that the probable

cause of the crash was the crew’s decision to descend to 1,800 feet

before they had reached the approach segment where that minimum

altitude applied. Even though the NTSB affirmed that this decision of

the pilots was a result of inadequacies and lack of clarity in ATC

procedures, they said the pilots should have taken note of this in the

Plan View of the approach charts.

At the hearing, the NTSB had ground witnesses that testified to

bad weather, considerable testimony by plots and controllers that

testified they would have treated the flight as radar arrival,

testimonies that said many times aircraft that are vectored off

published routes usually are cleared to descend below the altitudes

written on the chart. They also had FAA witnesses, which said that

Flight 514 was inbound in its own navigation and should not have

descended, implying the controller was not responsible for not giving

them a clearance. The NTSB concluded that the captain should have
realized that 1,800 feet might not have been a safe altitude to descend

to. Furthermore, the board also recognized a deficiency in the chart,

but the information needed by the crew was still included in the Plan

View of the chart.

Conclusions of the NTSB show that even though the system

allowed for the flight to be considered non-radar (as stated by the

FAA), it should have been treated as a radar-arrival. They believed the

clearance should have included an altitude restriction, showing how

they believed the controller’s clearance was inadequate, and its

accepting was a misconception between pilot and controller. There

were two board members that dissented and argued the probable

cause of the crash was in fact failure of the controller to give an

altitude restriction, and failure of the pilot to follow MSA as depicted in

the chart. The majority of the board attributed failure of the controller

to handle the flight as a radar arrival to be a terminology difficulty

between pilots and controllers. The NTSB also concludes that the crash

was a failure of both the controller and the pilot to make best use of

the airspace system.

Marlene J Brock, widow of Richard I Brock (which was the

captain of the flight and deceased in the crash), brought a lawsuit

against the FAA (part of the United States of America) against the

wrongful death of her husband (captain) and the copilot (Contributory

Negligence by part of USA). Since her husband was dead, she was the

plaintiff representing him. After the Federal Torts Claim Act was

passed, citizens had the ability to sue the government on behalf of the

people; therefore, this action was brought under this act, and the

court (Federal District Court in Virginia) had jurisdiction since damages

exceeded US$ 75,000 and it involved the United States of America and

a citizen from outside the state of Virginia (and the accident happened

in Virginia).

Even though the plaintiff can use facts that were brought forth

by the NTSB documents, they cannot “quote” any NTSB findings or

opinions in a case (except for pure facts). This would be considered a

civil negligence case (between an individual against a federal agency;

if a case has the state against an individual it would be a criminal

one). The court stated that the pilots, by accepting a clearance from

the controller exercised their judgement that the clearance would not

jeopardize the aircraft. They showed how ATC acted according to all

they were expected: They didn’t need to give the flight an altitude

restriction as it wasn’t a radar arrival, so the controller had no duty

towards the pilot to give an altitude restriction.

The court disagreed with the claim that the controller was

negligent in not giving a traffic advisory, as the flight was on its own

navigation and would go below MVA at some point anyways. The court
also deemed that the controller was not negligent in not giving the

pilots an advisory when they descended below 2,000 feet because he

had no duty to do so, only if he had the time and ability to do so.

Furthermore, the controller affirmed he only saw the aircraft at 2,000

feet near the time of impact, further relieving him from a duty to warn

the pilot that he was going below a safe altitude.

Since states can be either Contributory or Comparative

negligence states, Virginia deemed that the pilot and the copilot

contributed to their own injury since they did not follow through with

their responsibilities. In the end the court said that the pilots were

negligent in wrongfully interpreting a clearance. The court said that

the pilots had the duty to know the procedure and the mountainous

terrain, and what to do, and reject the clearance if they thought it

would harm them. The NTSB on the other hand, implies that the crash

was the fault of both the controller and the pilots.

The court found no fault on part of the controller and his actions,

they said contributory negligence by part of the pilots was the sole

proximate cause of the crash, in which case the plaintiff would get

nothing. The pilots were both negligent and thus contributed to their

own injury (since they breached their duty, which the testimony

established, was not to descend to 1800 feet until the radio facility,

Round Hill, was crossed and positively identified. The duty imposed by
14 CFR ß 91.119 12 which requires that in the case of operations over

an area designated as mountainous area, an aircraft may not be

operated less than 2000 feet above the highest obstacle within a

horizontal distance of five miles and in other areas with not less than

1000 feet clearance. The duty to be familiar with the mountainous

terrain west of Dulles; and the duty to reject the clearance if it was not

acceptable or inquire if it was not clearly understood). Since Last Clear

Chance might have been able to be used by the plaintiff against the

FAA, it is automatically disregarded for this court because the court

found the defendant not guilty of primary negligence. However, if this

case is appealed, this could be a resource if the next court up (Court of

Appeals) disagrees with the decisions made by this court. If still

unhappy with that outcome, after this, the next step up the plaintiff

would present the case to would be the Supreme Court of the United

States.