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Guest bag swinnger

Hmm. Interesting topic in which I am totally ignorant. This brings a few questions to mind. as I am just considering setting up a federally incorporated company. Maybe some of you could enlighten me. If I have a company and am registered in the province that I am working in, and if something in the way of an external load becomes un attached for whatever reason and injures someone or worse! How liable am I as the pic? How liable am I as a pilot that is a regular employee working for, say, northern mountain helicopters?

Have there been cases that any one is aware of like this in canada?

 

CAP What does this $2800.00 liabilty coverge, cover exactly? Would it cover me in the situation above?

How common is this liability insurance among contract guys?

Having witnessed bags fall from a carousell because it was improperly hooked resulting in a close call, or seeing logs slip out of chokers below sikorskie's just before landing, where ground crew have been severly injured. or hearing storys of whole long lines and bag runners with bags attached departing in flight, buckets full of cement coming off, not to mention the bambi buckets that come off every year. I would think that there would have been a few cases resulting in law suits in Canada. does anyone know of any?

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Guest bag swinnger

If common sense was so common why doesn't everybody have it?

 

I am not so much talking about finger trouble as I am wondering about the other stuff that happens like wrong ring size on the belly hook or faulty electrical or what have you, not that there would be any difference in the eyes of the law.

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Bagswinger,

The whole point of this post is "Don't ask pilots about this stuff. We only know enough to be scared !!"

Please, please talk to a GOOD lawyer about this stuff before coming out from under your employer's protection (for what that's worth) and setting yourself up as a business.

More rumours I just heard.......as I said before, a federally incorporated company has to pay a registration fee in every province it wishes to work in, (except Ontario), BUT,...the provincial registration fees are the same amount as each province's Incorporation fee !!!! Is it all worth it ???

 

Double-check pear-ring sizes, check the electrics before lift-off with your engineer (or anyone), etc., etc.

Give your passengers and ground crew nothing less than the most professional flight you can.

Not only are they expecting it from you, but it will make it that much harder for some Armani-suited lawyer to get his teeth into you.

Fly safe.

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Guest bag swinnger

I hope this doesnt end up being one of those topics that anybody wants to admit to actually happenning out there.

every where I go wheather for the operators that I have worked for, or the operators that I have worked around I see the same stuff going on THE OPS GEAR IS CRAP! pear ring sizes the number one least likely component that fits. electrical snags, intermittent hooks, long lines that are unwinding. I as well as others have gone out and purchased some of my own ops gear including my own synthetic longline, if for nothing else peace of mind.

I find it ineresting that the front end office staff are always talking saftey with this sort of stuff but once you get out in the feild or to a remote base you are on your own and are forced to make the decision on wheather to use shody equipment just to get the job done or not.

In just this last week, I have talked to more than one pilot in the vertical referance buissness and I am hearing that, hey the machines are great but the ops gear is garbage!

So maybe there is someone in the know that can answer me this question, as an employee of any canadian helicopter company. Am I liable if any of this stuff from the belly hook on down the line fails?

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Hi Bagflinger, you don't know who I am, but I do know who you are, and the companies you have worked for.

 

In reply to your question about liability if something falls off.......I don't know the answer......but I can guess that some employers will stick with you, while others will run-like-**** in the opposite direction.

 

May I suggest you look up the posts about "Good companies to work for".

Companies don't just make it onto that list because they pay big bucks........they usually have good ops gear, a benefit plan, and treat you respectfully, and expect a good job in return........these things usually go hand-in-hand at the "good" companies.

How do your employers measure up ??? Did they make the list ???

 

We are in a tough business, a "good" employer makes life alot easier.

Did you really have to buy your own long-line to get a good one???? Holy doo-doo, it might be time for you to exercise your piloting skills by 'pulling a 180 and getting the-****-outta there'!!

I cannot guarantee you a job at any of the "good" companies, but the sooner you start calling around, the sooner you will start working with the right size pear-rings.

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Bagswinger

 

I know where you are coming from with the ops gear woes. Sometimes you have to take a stand on gear. I have in past destroyed (cut-up) long-lines, slings etc that were still being used but were not safe. They were returned to stores with a request for new stuff which was then sent out. I have found sometimes the people that make the Ops Gear decisions are the stores personnel, who are under pressure to save money and consequently try to make do. When I have said this or that piece of gear is not serviceable and I can't use it, that is the end of the story. If faced with a new job that I arrive at - I check out things as soon as I can and start making phone calls for new gear if necessary.

 

In answer to your other question, I would think without question you would be liable if you were aware that whatever broke was in poor shape etc. If you checked everything and it was good and serviceable and then it broke, you would at least have a defence (defence because you likely still would be named as a party in a suit). If a company espouses safety etc, but their gear is shoddy, and the pilot uses it, I am sure the company will produce memos that have directed employees to make sure everything is safe, including ops gear and will say that they rely on pilots to ensure their ops gear is adequate or to notify the company.

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Cap was talking about some pilots that form a company and then contract themselves out under a company name i.e. Joe's Flying B.C. Ltd..........

This is done for some tax advantages, and also to protect the pilot personally from liability suits i.e. the lawyers could only take what the company owned, and not the pilot's personal property i.e. house, cat, dog and luxury yacht !!

 

I'm afraid it's not that simple. Getting hired as a contractor instead of as an employee makes it more difficult for people to come after you but it's not impossible.

If you are a director, president, C.E.O. etc of your company and you are directly responsible for someone's injuries, they can come after your "house, cat, dog and luxury yacht" if they can prove that you were negligent in your actions.

 

Just to give you an example, if you are operating within the "dead man's zone" of the flight manual and the engine quits and one of your passengers is injured, a good lawyer would argue that you weren't able to conduct a succesfull autorotation because you were operating the A/C outside of the safety zone as outlined in the flight manual.

 

Everybody in this business knows that the dead man's zone is where we have to be 90% of the time but all a jury and lawyers would care about is the fact that you knowingly put yourself and your passenger/s in an unsafe situation, as dictated in black and white in the flight manual.

 

All I can say is go see a good (expensive) lawyer and get him/her to explain it to you in detail. You might be surprised!!!!!!

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