Lawsuit follows heart flight crash
Christine Hines, daughter of Mayo Clinic organ procurement technician David Hines, has filed a lawsuit at Clay County Court, Florida, US, claiming that the organ transplant flight that led to her father’s death should never have taken place. The wrongful death lawsuit alleges that due to poor visibility and weather conditions, the helicopter should not have taken off, saying that pilot Hoke Smith and his company, SK Jets of St Augustine, were negligent in attempting the flight.
Christine Hines, daughter of Mayo Clinic organ procurement technician David Hines, has filed a lawsuit at Clay County Court, Florida, US, claiming that the organ transplant flight that led to her father’s death should never have taken place. The wrongful death lawsuit alleges that due to poor visibility and weather conditions, the helicopter should not have taken off, saying that pilot Hoke Smith and his company, SK Jets of St Augustine, were negligent in attempting the flight.
Smith, Hines and cardiac surgeon Dr Luis Bonilla, also of Mayo Clinic, were killed when the Bell 206 helicopter crashed in a remote and densely forested area around 12 miles northeast of Palataka at around 05:45 hrs on 26 December, while en route to collect a heart for transplant, according to a Federal Aviation Administration spokesperson and the Clay County Sheriff’s Office.
The Sun Sentinel newspaper quoted Robert Spohrer, attorney for Christine Hines, as saying: “The bottom line here is that the weather was so bad, with low ceiling and fog, that the flight should never have been made.” Spohrer added that the pilot took off knowing the ceiling was as low as 300 ft, and was flying over a rural and dark area ‘attempting to manoeuvre by reference to visual cues outside the aircraft’. The crash, he alleged, was due to clouds, fog and mist leading to Smith becoming spatially disoriented and striking a 50-ft pine tree.
According to the Sun Sentinel, damages of over $15,000 are being sought from SK Logistics, which operates as SK Jets, and from Smith’s estate, to cover the suffering and mental pain of Christine Hines, her brother Jonathan Wayne Hines and sister Crystal Griner.
In comments reported by the Florida Times Union, Griner stated the motivation behind the lawsuit: “We just want justice for our father and the other families that are going through this. We do not want anything to happen to anybody else. This is a horrible, horrible thing.”