Organizations are responsible for negligent behavior of employees. What organization should be held accountable for an airline crash that killed people if a Fairchild Metro III plane that took off from Belfast was owned by a Spanish bank, leased to a Spanish company, subleased to another Spanish company, Flightline, which in essence rented the plane and pilots to Manx2, a small airline which claims to be merely a ticket seller?
Europe is full of small upstart airlines, and Manx2, which served eight destinations in Britain and Ireland, certainly seemed to be one of them. Its planes were emblazoned with its name. The flight attendants said, “Welcome aboard this Manx2 flight.” Even the headrests and pilots’ ties advertised the airline.
Then one of its planes crashed, killing the pilots and four others, and Manx2 said it wasn’t an airline after all. It was resolutely earthbound, a mere ticket seller. Someone else was responsible for what happened up in the sky.
The crash, which took place on a foggy morning at the Cork, Ireland, airport three years ago, is now the subject of a lengthy report by Ireland’s Air Accident Investigation Unit. As entrepreneurs invade formerly regulated spheres like ground transportation, short-term lodging and perhaps even medical care, it makes for alarming reading.
Manx2 was formed in 2006 on the Isle of Man, a popular vacation spot nestled between England and Ireland. Its planes flew between such cities as Blackpool, Cardiff, Newcastle and Cork as well as to the Isle of Man itself.
Offering cheap flights to convenient airports poorly served by bigger carriers, Manx2 was a gift to travelers and a model entrepreneurial start-up in a mode of transportation that has not seen much innovation. “Passenger comfort and safety is our prime concern,” a promotional video said reassuringly.
But the accident report says this was all an illusion, noting “systemic deficiencies at the operational, organizational and regulatory levels.” No one was really in charge.
The plane, a Fairchild Metro III that took off from Belfast, was owned by a Spanish bank and leased to a Spanish company. It was then subleased to another Spanish company, Flightline, which in essence rented the plane and pilots to Manx2.
Manx2, the report said, “did not wish to have the regulatory complexity” of actually running an airline. Since none of its planes had more than 19 seats, it did not need a British permit for its activities.
Other points brought out in the investigation: Both the pilot and copilot were relatively inexperienced, and thus should not have been flying together. Neither was fully rested, so fatigue may have been a factor in the crash.
The pilots did not have an adequate back-up plan involving alternate airports. During the flight, “there was limited formal evaluation of the weather conditions or discussion of available options.” There were various maintenance “non-compliances” (the plane had been used for cargo earlier that morning, which involved removing the seats), while decisions made onboard were “not in accordance with good practice.”
The plane crashed on its third attempt at landing, one wing striking the ground first. The plane went upside down and went into the mud. All the fatalities were in the front, the point of maximum impact.
“I could hear screaming, moaning, shouting and then I heard another passenger shout — We’re on fire, we’re on fire,” one of the survivors told the BBC.
The BBC investigation also noted that Manx2 had bragged in a news release that it could land planes in fog when other airlines would not.
Manx2 no longer exists. A year ago, it rebranded itself as CityWing, flying most of the same routes. “Manx2 customers have been assured it is business as usual,” an Isle of Man paper reported in discussing the change.
When the crash report came out, Manx2 issued a statement noting it had been liquidated. “Unfortunately, the report is clear that the prime causes of the accident were decisions made by the Flightline crew in adverse weather conditions,” the statement said, going on to blame “a significant lack of oversight by the Spanish air safety authority.”
As for Flightline, it seems to have issued no statement and did not respond to a request for comment. Its website says “we want to be a new concept of a company,” which critics think is precisely the problem.
Expect a lot of discussion of this issue in the next year or two. In a related development, a group of taxi owners and drivers filed suit Thursday against the City of Chicago, claiming that by failing to enforce its own rules for taxi services with start-ups like Uber, Lyft and Sidecar, it was jeopardizing public health and safety. The suit is apparently the first of its kind in the nation, but probably will not be the last.