Whether or not owners of Bali Hai Helicopter Tours Inc. had insurance coverage at the time of last year’s fatal crash in the mountains of Kaua‘i is a key component in a wrongful-death lawsuit filed by an attorney for two
Whether or not owners of Bali Hai Helicopter Tours Inc. had insurance coverage at the time of last year’s fatal crash in the mountains of Kaua‘i is a key component in a wrongful-death lawsuit filed by an attorney for two of the victims.
Rick Fried, who filed a suit against Bali Hai Helicopters March 10 in First Circuit Court in Honolulu on behalf of relatives of Tamara Zytkowski and Thomas Huemmer, visitors from Ohio who were killed in the Sept. 24 crash, said the issue of insurance coverage is of great importance.
The family of Willy and Heike Braun, a couple from Germany killed in the same crash, are being represented in the same suit by Sterns and Walker, an Oakland, Calif.-based law firm.
Gerald Sterns said there are three components to the suit.
The first is establishing the exact status of Bali Hai’s helicopter insurance at the time of the crash.
The information so far has not been forthcoming, and is tied up in litigation in Los Angeles, where officials and attorneys of Bali Hai’s insurance company are trying to bypass the Hawai‘i courts and get a declaration of no coverage, Sterns said.
The second is wrongful death, and the third is obtaining critical records from the Federal Aviation Administration, Sterns added.
“The first issue is liability coverage,” Fried said from his Honolulu office yesterday.
“We believe they were covered. They’re denying coverage,” he said.
The suit seeks an unspecified amount of money.
Charles Crumpton, lawyer for Bali Hai Helicopter Tours Inc., could not be reached for comment Monday.
Also killed was the Bali Hai Helicopter Tours pilot Shankar Tummala.
Bali Hai Helicopters Inc. is no longer operating, and was reportedly negotiating the sale of the helicopter business to a pilot from another Kaua‘i helicopter company. A for-sale sign has been hanging in the company’s office window on Kaumuali‘i Highway in Hanapepe since a time shortly after the crash.
The accident occurred at a remote mountainside north of Kapalaoa Point eight miles north of Port Allen Harbor.
The investigation into the cause or causes of the crash last year that killed five people is nearly complete, said Nicole Charnon, an air-safety investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) in Honolulu.
Charnon said she had one more instrument to examine, the attitude indicator, but the examination of the wreckage was complete.
“I hope to have the factual report done by June,” she said.
Charnon said Bali Hai leaders maintained instrument-maintenance records. Whether they were in fact adequate would be evaluated by FAA officials, she said.
She added, “this is one investigation we do want to get out early if the NTSB needs to make future recommendations for air-industry tourism.”
- Andy Gross, business editor, may be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 251) or agross@pulitzer.net.
