American Eagle Flight 4184: $110 Million Crash Settlement and a Courtroom Apology

On October 31, 1994, American Eagle Flight 4184 was holding over northern Indiana in freezing rain, waiting for its turn to land at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. The ATR-72 turboprop, operated by Simmons Airlines for American Eagle, had flown up from Indianapolis. A ridge of ice formed on the wings just behind the deicing boots. The airplane rolled hard, dove, and struck a soybean field near Roselawn. All 68 people aboard died, 64 passengers and 4 crew members.

The National Transportation Safety Board traced the loss to that ice ridge, which triggered a sudden reversal in the aileron controls that the pilots could not recover from. Investigators faulted ATR, the French manufacturer, for failing to tell crews how the aircraft behaved in freezing precipitation. They also blamed French aviation regulators for weak oversight and the FAA for outdated icing certification rules. The pneumatic deicing boots inflated to shed ice from the leading edges, but they did not cover the area where the dangerous ridge built up. Among the dead were business travelers and families flying home.

Robert Clifford of Clifford Law Offices and Thomas Demetrio of Corboy & Demetrio headed the plaintiffs' legal team in the consolidated litigation that followed in Chicago. They built the case around what ATR knew about the ATR-42 and ATR-72 in icing conditions, including earlier incidents abroad that had not been passed along to American crews or to U.S. regulators. The defendants were American Airlines, Simmons Airlines, American Eagle, and ATR.

The matter went to trial in federal court in Chicago. About a week into the proceedings, the defendants agreed to a $110 million settlement, a record figure for an air crash at that time. The agreement resolved the first group of wrongful-death claims, covering 27 of the deaths, with dozens of additional families continuing to pursue their own damages claims separately.

The resolution also brought an unusual courtroom apology. An attorney for American Airlines told the families: "We are terribly sorry that this happened. We can never compensate you for the loss that you have suffered." Because the outcome was a negotiated settlement rather than a jury verdict, the figure was not subject to remittitur or reduction on appeal.