Aircraft Sabotage in the United States

Main Elements of a Claim Under § 1605A FSIA

Listed acts

According to research about Aircraft sabotage from the Federal Judicial Center:The statute defines “aircraft sabotage” by reference to Article 1 of the 1971 Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Civil Aviation, commonly referred to as the Montreal Convention.295 Under that article, a person commits an offense if he or she unlawfully and intentionally: (a) performs an act of violence against a person on board an aircraft in flight if that act is likely to endanger the safety of that aircraft; (b) destroys an aircraft in service or causes damage to such an aircraft which renders it incapable of flight or which is likely to endanger its safety in flight; (c) places or causes to be placed on an aircraft in service, by any means whatsoever, a device or substance which is likely to destroy that aircraft, or to cause damage to it which renders it incapable of flight, or to cause damage to it which is likely to endanger its safety in flight; (d) destroys or damages air navigation facilities or interferes with their operation, if any such act is likely to endanger the safety of aircraft in flight; or (e) communicates information which he knows to be false, thereby endangering the safety of an aircraft in flight.296 A person also commits an offense if he or she (a) attempts to commit any of the offenses mentioned above or (b) is an accomplice of a person who commits or attempts such an offense. Aircraft sabotage claims were sustained in Pugh v. Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya297 and Rein v. Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.298 In Pugh, claims were brought on behalf of seven American citizens killed on September 19, 1989, when UTA Flight 772, en route from Brazzaville to Paris, exploded in mid-air over southeastern Niger, killing all aboard. Rein involved claims by the survivors and representatives of persons killed aboard Pan Am Flight 103 above Lockerbie, Scotland. Note: FSIA is the acronym of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976.

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See Also

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