The family of one of the 67 victims of a plane crash last month near Washington filed two legal claims against the federal government on Tuesday, seeking compensation and signifying the beginning of what is expected to be a long and complex legal fight.
The claims, which appear to be the first against the U.S. government over the collision, were filed by the family of Casey Crafton, an airline passenger who died in the crash, according to Robert A. Clifford, the lawyer representing them. Mr. Clifford said he had also asked several companies associated with the crash to preserve evidence.
“I don’t know who caused this crash, but I know the passengers sure didn’t, and the families are entitled to answers,” Mr. Clifford said in an interview. “This was preventable.”
The crash occurred on the night of Jan. 29, when a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter collided with American Airlines Flight 5342 near Ronald Reagan National Airport, plunging both the plane and the helicopter into the icy Potomac River and killing everyone on both aircraft. It was the worst plane crash in the United States in nearly a quarter-century.
The cause has not yet been identified, but the National Transportation Safety Board, which is leading a federal investigation, said last week that it was looking into what appeared to be missed instructions sent from an air traffic controller to the helicopter pilots. Aviation experts say the investigation will probably identify multiple safety failures, as is often the case with plane crashes.
The claims by Mr. Crafton’s wife, Rachel, and their three children on Tuesday were filed under the Federal Tort Claims Act, which enables individuals to take the federal government to court for property damage, personal injury or death. One was filed against the Federal Aviation Administration, which oversees air traffic control, and the other against the Army. Each seeks $250 million in compensation, a figure which Mr. Clifford described as a ceiling for the claim.
The claims are filed with the F.A.A. and Army. If they reject the claims or fail to respond within six months, the family can file a lawsuit in federal court.
He said he expected to defer a decision on suing any companies connected to the crash until the N.T.S.B. issued a preliminary report. The agency has said that it plans to do so in the next weeks, but that it will not identify a probable cause of the crash until it publishes a final report in a year or two.
Mr. Clifford said he was weighing legal action on behalf of other victims’ families.
Mr. Clifford, who is also representing families of the crash of a 2019 Boeing 737 Max in Ethiopia, said he had asked several companies to preserve evidence related to last month’s episode. That includes American Airlines and its subsidiary, PSA Airlines, which was operating the plane, as well as Sikorsky Aircraft, the Lockheed Martin subsidiary that makes the Black Hawk helicopter, and Collins Aerospace, which makes components for military and commercial aircraft.
The airlines were ultimately responsible for the passengers’ safety, Mr. Clifford said, particularly considering mounting safety concerns at Reagan National, including congestion and previous close calls.
“We think that the airlines knew of all these near misses, that they knew that there were these potential dangers, and under the law as the common carrier, American and PSA had the highest duty of care,” he said.
On the night of the crash, the helicopter crew had asked an air traffic controller for permission to use visual separation with the plane, by which pilots maintain distance from a nearby aircraft by keeping it in their line of sight. The request was granted, but questions remain about whether the controller had left too much room for confusion in communications with the helicopter crew or whether that crew had been focused on the wrong plane altogether.
At a news conference last week, the N.T.S.B. shared two instances in which it appeared that the helicopter crew might not have fully received messages from the air traffic controller. The episode also shed light on concerns that the air traffic control system has come under increasing strain in recent years, partly because of chronic understaffing.
Mr. Crafton, 40, lived in Connecticut and studied aviation management at Bob Jones University, where he met his wife. On the night of the crash, he was returning from a business trip to Wichita, Kan.
