Dozens of Qantas passengers and crew are launching a multi-million dollar case against Airbus and a component-maker over a terrifying mid-air plunge which left scores injured, a lawyer said Monday.
Attorney Floyd Wisner said he was representing 76 passengers and crew who were on the 2008 flight which dived steeply twice, tossing people around the cabin and forcing an emergency landing at a remote Australian air force base.
Wisner refused to put a figure on the compensation sought in US courts from Europe's Airbus and American firm Northrop Grumman, which made a data unit on the plane, but said it would be in the millions of dollars.
"I can tell you from my experience of cases like this, the awards probably would range from low six figures going up, depending on the injury," he told AFP via telephone from the United States.
"Some of the people with very, very serious physical and psychological (injuries) would be in the few million dollar range."
Among the mostly Australian group he is representing, which also includes passengers from Britain, Sri Lanka, India and Singapore, are the three Qantas pilots who were on the flight, he said.
The Airbus A330-300 was flying at 37,000 feet from Singapore to Perth in October 2008 when the autopilot disengaged and the plane nose-dived, plunging 650 feet (200 metres) and throwing passengers and loose items around the cabin.
After the pilots brought it back to altitude, the plane went into another plunge and dropped another 400 feet. More than 100 people were injured.
Passengers were left with broken limbs, spinal injuries and severe lacerations as well psychological scars, and the cabin was left looking "like a war zone" after people and food carts flew through the air, Wisner said.
"People flew up to the ceiling, hit their head on the (luggage) bins, and then remained up on the ceiling for what to them seemed like an unusual amount of time only to come crashing down on top of other people," he said.
"People told me that they gripped the hands of the person next to them, and said to them, 'I never thought I was going to die in an air crash but I guess I am'. Or, 'I just wish I could call my spouse one more time to tell them I love them'. Because it was just really a very, very frightening experience."
Many passengers travelling that day were so traumatised by the incident they are no longer able to fly, he added.
He said he believed the captain of the flight, a former "top gun pilot from the US Navy", had not flown since.
"He has told me that when the plane went out of control, the computer would not give him back control of the plane and he said it was in a dive," Wisner told ABC Radio.
"All he could see was the ocean. He has never been as frightened as he was at that point despite all his prior military aircraft training."
Wisner, whose practice is devoted to aviation cases, said he had been contacted by Australian lawyers to work on the compensation claims before the statute of limitations expires on October 7 this year.
He said if the claims were not settled, he expected the case to go to trial in the US within two years.
Qantas, which prides itself on its safety record, said the incident was an "exceptionally rare event", noting that the Australian Transport Safety Bureau was yet to release its final report into the cause of the plunges.
The Australian airline said it had already settled a number of claims over the incident while others were outstanding. "We will, of course, also consider any new claims," a spokesman told AFP in a statement.