Clifford Law Offices

Tarom Airlines Flight 371 crashed in Bucharest, Romania, on March 31, 1995, while en route to Brussels, Belgium, killing all 60 people aboard. Dan Chung, a 57-year-old business consultant, was killed.The Romanian Transport Ministry found that the cause of the Airbus crash, and French and Belgian experts agreed, was that the pilot became affected by health problems shortly after takeoff causing the aircraft to go into a spin when the throttle fell idle.The co-pilot was able to switch on the autopilot, but this function refused to carry out the procedure because the necessary parameters were not met, according to the chief inspector of the Romanian Civil Aviation Authority. Richard Burke flew to France to take the depositions of airline employees, then settled the matter for $4.7 million.

Our aviation attorneys obtained $4.1 million in 1998 on behalf of a photographer killed in a helicopter that crashed into a northwestern suburban home in Chicago.

A small charter fishing plane crashed in a remote area of Canada carrying four friends on August 24, 2002.
A 41-year-old business executive from Geneva, Illinois, was killed. Clifford Law Offices represented his
family and obtained a $4.2 million settlement.

Alaska Air Flight 261 crashed into the Pacific Ocean in 2000 carrying 88 passengers, many home-bound for Seattle from sunny Puerto Vallarta. We represented seven families who lost loved ones. Aviation attorney Kevin Durkin deposed more than 80 people, including airline executives and aviation experts, over three years to determine the cause of the crash – the airplane’s jackscrew system. Even though the National Transportation Safety Board gave the company a virtual pass in its report of the accident, our airplane accident lawyers did the work needed to prevail on behalf of the families we represented.

Aviation accident lawyer Richard Burke obtained a $6.8 million verdict as a result of the crash of a Piper aircraft in northwest suburban Schaumburg, Illinois on behalf of a Plainfield woman who suffered injuries as a passenger when the plane ran out of gas. The National Law Journal recognized this success as the "Verdict of the Week" in May 2002.

A small plane crashed in Woodruff, Wisconsin, killing a mother of six children and her husband, passengers on the plane. Our airplane crash attorneys obtained a policy limits settlement for the family.

Airplane crash attorney Richard Burke obtained a $10.45 million verdict following a five-week trial on behalf of the family of a pilot who died when a private Gulfstream IV jet crashed. He also obtained a $13.5 million settlement on behalf of a passenger killed in the same crash.

Our plane crash attorneys obtained $10 million for the family of a Brazilian entrepreneur killed as he and his wife took a short helicopter flight from New York to New Jersey. The pilot flew into inclement weather and was unable to steer the aircraft safely.

Robert Clifford served as lead counsel for the American Eagle Flight 4184 crash in Roselawn, Indiana in 1994. The experienced plane crash lawyer had prepared PowerPoint presentations to explain the case, videos to show the testimony of dozens of witnesses, and day-in-the-life professionally produced videos of the 16 victims he represented. As the trial was ready to begin, the defendants agreed  to a record $110 million settlement and an apology in open court.

The passengers on United Airlines Flight 232 were thrown from the plane when it crash-landed in flames into a soybean field in Iowa in 1989. The jury took less than three hours to return a verdict of $28.2 million on behalf of a 70-year-old woman with permanent injuries. Robert Clifford, airplane crash attorney, also obtained a $15 million settlement for a father who lost his wife and daughter and an additional $250,000 donated for a bereavement center at Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago in their names.