Cathay Pacific’s first female captain is suing the airline over injuries she allegedly sustained during an emergency landing on a small island in Alaska.
Annabelle Cochrane-Lorentsson has issued a writ accusing the airline of causing the accident by negligence and breach of duty, Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post reported. She also accused the carrier of breach of employment contract.
Cochrane-Lorentsson joined Cathay in 1998 and became the airline’s first female captain in 2007.
Her legal action relates to an emergency diversion three years ago when smoke was detected aboard a Cathay B777-300.
Passengers recounted scenes of frightened people crying and cabin crew rushing around when the Los Angeles-bound flight suddenly changed course on 29 July 2015.
A dramatic YouTube clip made by a passenger aboard the flight can be viewed below. The blogger who posted it looks, quite understandably, very concerned – and then immensely relieved to learn there won’t be a water landing. The clip, which also shows passengers putting on lifejackets, has attracted over 7 million views.
Global Travel Media reported at the time that flight CX884 landed “not in sunny LA but in a remote, treeless and bleak US airbase on a chilly, windswept island in Alaska’s Aleutian archipelago”.
The pilot had decided to make a precautionary diversion to Eareckson Air Station in Shemya Island, Alaska. The notoriously windy and cold island has a resident population of about 27 people.
The Cathay flight, carrying 276 passengers and 18 crew, eventually departed Shemya and flew about 2400 kilometres to Anchorage, Alaska. Cathay flew in another plane from Hong Kong to convey everyone from Anchorage to Los Angeles.
Shemya Island
The writ Cochrane-Lorentsson filed in Hong Kong’s High Court did not detail the “personal injury, loss and damage” she sustained, for which she is now claiming an unspecified sum of damages together with interest and costs, the South China Morning Post said.
The first hearing is scheduled on 8 January 2019.
In a tweet at the time relating to the 2015 incident, Cathay explained that a “preliminary inspection indicates that an equipment cooling fan below the cabin floor near the cargo compartment had failed”, so there was smoke in the cockpit, and the captain decided to make an emergency landing.
Written by Peter Needham
.jpg){kind=tracking}
This seems a little bizarre. All reports I’ve read from back in 2015 indicate that the landing went without incident and that there were no injuries. One has to speculate if some incident occurred in the cockpit, perhaps between this woman and the other pilot. Did one want to divert and the other not? If they both agreed with the diversion, then its assumed that the woman participated in the landing, so how could she be injured in what appears to be a safe landing? And why a three year delay in making a claim? She surely can’t be claiming PTSD as nothing in this incident appears to be beyond things that pilots are highly trained to deal with. Interesting that the claim doesn’t state the injuries nor how they occurred.
This seems a little bizarre. All reports I’ve read from back in 2015 indicate that the landing went without incident and that there were no injuries. One has to speculate if some incident occurred in the cockpit, perhaps between this woman and the other pilot. Did one want to divert and the other not? If they both agreed with the diversion, then its assumed that the woman participated in the landing, so how could she be injured in what appears to be a safe landing? And why a three year delay in making a claim? She surely can’t be claiming PTSD as nothing in this incident appears to be beyond things that pilots are highly trained to deal with. Interesting that the claim doesn’t state the injuries nor how they occurred.