Colgan tries to stop FAA official from testifying
March 22--Christopher Monteleon complained about the poor performance of Colgan Air's pilots more than a year before one of its planes plummeted to the ground in Clarence Center, killing 50 people.
But the retired FAA flight inspector and self-described whistle-blower may never get to testify in the lawsuits brought by families of the victims of Flight 3407.
Colgan is seeking to stop Monteleon's deposition in what one lawyer called an obvious attempt to sweep aside the airline's responsibility for the crash.
"He blew the whistle and said Colgan had all kinds of problems," said Hugh M. Russ III, a lawyer for several of the families. "And now Colgan doesn't want us to ask him any questions."
Russ said Colgan's effort to quash Monteleon's testimony is the latest in a series of attempts to prevent disclosure of important information about the Feb. 12, 2009, crash.
The airline also seeks to stop the testimony of Nicholas Sabatini, an airline consultant Colgan hired after the accident.
"Three years later, Colgan is still trying to prevent people from learning what happened," Russ said.
Colgan claims that the Federal Aviation Administration violated its own regulations by allowing Monteleon to testify. It also contends that he is ill-equipped to answer questions about the accident.
"Mr. Monteleon's personal knowledge as to the facts allegedly causing the crash of Flight 3407 is minimal at best," Pinnacle Airlines, Colgan's parent company, said in a statement Wednesday.
Monteleon gained notoriety when he went public with his complaints about Colgan and its use of the Q400 Turboprop that crashed in Clarence Center.
In 2008, while still with the FAA and about a year before the crash, Monteleon complained to his supervisors about the performance of Colgan pilots learning to fly the new twin-engine aircraft.
Court papers say Monteleon reported that the pilots were poorly trained, too tired to fly and too willing to ignore their failures. He also criticized Colgan for pushing too hard to get its Q400 flights off the ground and for "cutting corners" on safety issues, according to court documents.
From Day One, Colgan has denied the allegations and countered by suggesting Monteleon may be biased against the airline.
Monteleon claims that his bosses at the FAA were too "cozy" with Colgan and that his allegations resulted in his being reassigned to a new job.
"Mr. Monteleon's allegation was investigated by several federal agencies and determined to be without merit," Pinnacle said in its statement.
The airline also suggested that the families' push for Monteleon's testimony is rooted in a desire for sensationalism, not substance.
"Indeed, it appears that plaintiffs seek Mr. Monteleon's deposition, not for factual information related to the alleged cause of their injuries, but rather solely for its inflammatory nature," the airline said in its court papers.
There's no indication Monteleon knew Capt. Marvin D. Renslow, the Flight 3407 pilot, but his testimony is considered important because of the reported cause of the crash -- pilot error.
Russ thinks Monteleon's testimony is so important that it could hasten the resolution of the Flight 3407 lawsuits.
He also thinks the information Monteleon can provide will prove crucial to deciding what punitive damages, if any, the airline pays. Punitive damages in this case could be decided by how a judge or jury views Colgan's responsibility for the crash.
"That issue will turn, not on what happened in the cockpit in the moments before the crash," Russ said, "but rather on what the airline's operations and procedures were."
In his court papers, Russ suggested that Colgan has been less than honest in providing witnesses and information as part of the court case.
He also made similar allegations against Continental Airlines, the national carrier that had contracted with Colgan to operate Flight 3407. The plane that crashed was flying under the Continental Connection banner.
Like Colgan, Continental is dragging its feet in providing witnesses, Russ claimed. Continental merged with United Airlines in 2010.
"Continental continues to erect roadblocks," he said in a separate court filing. "Time is of the essence, and Continental's continued gamesmanship cannot be countenanced."
Russ directed most of his ire at Colgan and, in his court papers, mentioned Chris Bragman, a Colgan trainer who allegedly told fellow employees that he regretted promoting Renslow to the Q400. "It's alleged by many people that he made statements of regret," Russ said.
Despite those claims, which Russ said are backed up by two other Colgan employees, Bragman at his court-ordered deposition denied making those comments. "Bragman's dishonesty became almost laughable," Russ said in his court papers.
Monteleon is not the only potential witness Colgan has attempted to bar from testifying. The airline asked the court to prohibit the questioning of Sabatini, a former FAA official who is now a private adviser. "Sabatini was an independent consultant brought in to evaluate Colgan's operations and procedures right after the crash," Russ said. "Colgan doesn't want us to know what he found."
Russ' court papers also contain an internal Colgan memo that may bolster his long-standing argument that Colgan was in dire financial straits at the time of the crash and was betting its future on the Q400.
For months, Russ has argued that Renslow was trained and promoted too quickly because of Colgan's desire to push ahead with its new fleet of aircraft.
"During the spring and summer this year [2008], Colgan was fighting for its life," Harry Mitchell, Colgan's vice president for flight operations, said in an October 2008 memo to its pilots.
Mitchell's memo suggests that the airline was losing up to $1.5 million a month and that the switch to Q400s was viewed as an all-important cost-cutting move.
Copyright 2012 - The Buffalo News, N.Y.