Life in the Wake of Flight 815: Lost Flight, Lost Company, Lost Industry?
By Ross Goldberg
PBS Radio.org

The world will not soon forget the tragedy of Oceanic Airlines Flight 815, bound from Sydney, Australia and en-route to Los Angeles, California when it was lost with all aboard. Since then, the implications of the disaster have been felt well beyond the scope of the family and friends of the crash victims.

In December, 2004, a jury held Oceanic Airlines, L.L.P. criminally negligent and found in favor of the plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit filed against the airline on behalf of the victims of the crash and their families. The award set a staggering precedent for corporate liability - to the tune of $4,815,162,342 (yes, that's over four BILLION and a most unusual number). The rationale for such a high amount is due in no small part to the efforts of council retained by Sabrina Carlyle, CEO of Carlyle Weddings, Inc. Her son, Boone, (COO of Carlyle) and step-daughter Shannon Rutherford were among those lost on the flight.

In the wake of the court-ordered settlement and still reeling from the FAA-mandated cessation of all flights immediately after OA815 disappeared, Oceanic Airlines, L.L.P. declared the payout would put them at an irrevocable fiscal loss in operating budgets and filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy protection from the United States Government. After Oceanic's legal team filed a Motion for Expedition, a U.S. Appellate Court heard the case on January 23, 2005 and unanimously voted against protection for Oceanic.

The next day, Oceanic closed its doors. And between Customer Service Reps, Flight Attendants, Pilots, Mechanics, Baggage Handlers, and technical support personnel, over 30,000 people were out of work. Some had pensions they will never see; most had families they must find a way to support.

So this has brought forth a tough question in the economic community: does the loss of one aircraft (admittedly with over 300 passengers, not including crew) justify putting a number of people roughly equal to the population of a small city back into the job market? The answers, we find, are disparate and emotional.

Ask Christina Smith, whose husband, Jake Smith, was onboard OA815, and she'll say yes. "I have to exist without my dear Jake. I can't call it 'live' because I don't believe I'll ever be truly alive again." Mrs. Smith, incidentally, was awarded just shy of five million dollars in the Oceanic settlement. That, she says, is of little comfort: "The lawsuit wasn't about the money. It was about making them [the airline] responsible for what they done. If I could buy back my husband's life with this money, I'd do it before I took two steps away from that tape recorder you're holding out to me. Money don't buy happiness. Jake was my happiness."

Janis O'Toole, who was a flight attendant for Oceanic prior to losing her job, has a decidedly different view. "No one is saying that what happened to flight 815 is anything other than a catastrophic loss of human life. I knew the crew on that flight, and I was actually scheduled to work it, except I got sick and didn't make the LAX to Sydney leg. But what happened to the good of the many outweighing the good of the few? Oceanic had a perfect operating record.  I've worked for them for over 5 years, and I was never even on a flight that had to be delayed due to a mechanical issue. All this talk about faulty telemetry equipment and radios is just cruel speculation, if you ask me." Janis was closer to the crew than her quote makes it seem - she was actually engaged to Captain Daniel Weiss, who piloted the fateful flight.

Oceanic President Michael Orteig issued this statement, now posted on the defunct main page of www.oceanic-air.com: "After 25 years of service, we are forced to close our doors. Due to financial difficulties in the wake of the Flight 815 tragedy, we are no longer able to sustain service. We are deeply sorry that we can no longer serve our loyal customers, and apologize for any inconvenience our decision will cause."

On that day, when Mr. Orteig released his almost tear-filled statement, stocks for all the major U.S. -based airlines plummeted an average of 5 points. It is a dip from which they have yet to recover. All in all, this industry so vital to the infrastructure of the world, not simply the United States, has been dealt the second crippling blow this decade.  Not since the fallout of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001 has a bigger single-day drop been seen.

So, this reporter is forced to ask the toughest of questions. Is Janis O'Toole right?  Are we really sacrificing the good of the many for the sake of the few, and are we really doing justice to the memories of the victims of OA815 by potentially putting an entire method of transportation, used by over a billion people each year, at risk of collapse?

That is for you, the public, and the lawmakers to decide.