The High Court has ordered Aer Lingus to disclose selected records in a flight attendant’s personal injuries action over an alleged hard landing at Boston Airport, while refusing discovery of cockpit voice recordings.
Vicki Purtill claims she was injured while working as a flight attendant on a transatlantic flight that landed at Boston on 28 June 2019. The judgment concerns a discovery application, not the trial of her negligence claim. Aer Lingus disputes the request for records, including on the basis of European Union rules protecting aviation safety investigation material.
Mr Justice Garrett Simons ordered disclosure of flight data monitoring records for the period from five seconds before to five seconds after touchdown. Those records are to include landing parameters and any measured acceleration, deceleration or landing forces in vertical and horizontal directions. Aer Lingus had offered data for that ten-second window, supported by an expert affidavit stating that the touchdown data would provide relevant information about aircraft performance and G-forces. The affidavit was not contradicted by a plaintiff expert.
The judge said Purtill may apply for further and better discovery if the ten-second data indicates a harder-than-normal landing and an expert says events before touchdown are relevant to assessing negligence. The court did not decide whether the landing was negligent or whether Purtill was injured as alleged.
The court refused discovery of cockpit voice recordings. It considered those recordings highly confidential and unlikely to add meaningfully to the case when the flight data records would be available. The judge also concluded that disclosure would have no obvious benefit to Purtill and weighed the potential adverse effect on future safety investigations.
The judge ordered discovery of records about structural repairs to the seat, floor beams or safety harness for a period of one week before and after the flight. Aer Lingus had proposed a 24-hour period; the judge found that too short. The order also covers specified information about the aircraft, the seat occupied by Purtill and the safety harness, including its configuration and, if it was a three-point harness, which shoulder it crossed. Documentation identifying other cabin crew members’ seating locations on the flight must also be disclosed.
Discovery was ordered in modified terms for categories (b), (d), (e), (g) and (i), and refused for category (c). The parties were asked to submit an agreed draft order for approval within three weeks. The judge’s view that each side should bear its own costs was provisional; either side could seek a different order by arranging a further listing.