Widow Sues Airport Worker, City Over Plane Crash

April 23, 2020
According to a complaint filed, the death was due to an airport employee putting the wrong fuel into the airplane. The plane should have been filled up with Avgas, but the complaint alleges Jet A fuel was used instead.

The widow of the man who died in an airplane crash in Howard County in October 2019 is suing the city, the airport and an airport employee, alleging negligence and improper training caused the death of her husband.

Dr. Daniel P. Greenwald, a plastic surgeon from Tampa, died on Oct. 5 when his twin-engine Piper Aerostar 603P crashed in a field just south of Indiana 22. He was the only person onboard.

According to a complaint filed by Julie Robbins Greenwald and the estate of Daniel Greenwald on April 13 in Howard County Superior Court IV, the death was due to John Yount, an airport employee at that time, putting the wrong fuel into Daniel Greenwald’s airplane.

The plane should have been filled up with Avgas, but the complaint alleges Yount put in Jet A fuel instead.

A preliminary investigation report by the National Transportation Safety Board in October focused on the type of fuel given to the plane before it took off from Kokomo Municipal Airport.

According to the report, several of the plane’s engine spark plugs sustained damage that was “consistent with detonation,” and that a clear liquid “consistent in color and order with that of Jet A fuel” was found in the fuel lines and manifolds of both of the plane’s engines.

An employee of the airport, according to the report, told investigators he asked Daniel Greenwald two separate times if he wanted jet fuel for his twin-engine Piper Aerostar 602P because, according to the employee, the plane “looked like a jet airplane.” Both times, the report states, Greenwald told the airport employee “yes.” The report does not name the airport employee.

That same airport employee initially had trouble fueling the jet, spilling a gallon of fuel on the ground and then having to make an adjustment in angle of the nozzle in order to fuel the Piper Aerostar plane without spilling, according to the National Transportation Safety Board report.

The lawsuit claims the act of having to adjust the fuel nozzle is proof the wrong fuel was put in the plane since the plane’s tank fillers were designed to make it difficult to fill the plane with the wrong fuel.

The complaint also denies that Greenwald ever told anyone to put in jet fuel in his plane and that there were warnings and fueling instructions on the plane’s fuel tank apertures.

“Dr. Greenwald was a highly experienced pilot and never instructed anyone to fuel this aircraft with Jet A fuel,” the complaint reads.

The lawsuit alleges Yount was negligent when he filled the plane with Jet A fuel and that the city of Kokomo, Kokomo Municipal Airport and the Kokomo Municipal Airport Fixed Base Operator are guilty of not training Yount adequately in “how to determine the appropriate fuel for a particular plane, and failing to instruct Mr. Yount concerning the safety design features of the fuel nozzles and fuel tank ?llers, and failing to instruct Mr. Yount not to bypass the fuel nozzles’ and fuel tank ?llers’ safety design features.”

The suit is asking for a jury trial and an unspecified amount in damages due to the death.

Tyler Juranovich can be reached at 765-454-8577, by email at [email protected] or on Twitter at @tylerjuranovich

Tyler Juranovich can be reached at 765-454-8577, by email at [email protected] or on Twitter at @tylerjuranovich

———

©2020 the Kokomo Tribune (Kokomo, Ind.)

Visit the Kokomo Tribune (Kokomo, Ind.) at www.kokomotribune.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.