Chapecoense Soccer Team Crash: $844 Million in Judgments for 43 Families

On the night of November 28, 2016, a chartered Avro RJ85 carrying most of the Chapecoense Association Football Club to the Copa Sudamericana Finals in Medellin, Colombia, lost all power and crashed into a hillside outside the city. Seventy-one of the 77 people on board died, including players, coaching staff, and journalists. Six survived. Colombian aviation authorities later determined that the crew had skipped a planned refueling stop and then failed to declare a fuel emergency until the engines were already flaming out.

Families of the victims retained Podhurst Orseck. Steven Marks and Kristina Infante filed wrongful-death and negligence claims in Miami-Dade Circuit Court against the airline's owners and operators: Linea Aerea Merida Internacional de Aviacion, co-owner Marco Antonio Rocha Venegas, aircraft owner Kite Air Corp., and a fourth related party. The suit alleged that the defendants knowingly operated a flight beyond the aircraft's fuel range, ignored pre-departure warnings, and withheld the emergency from air traffic control until recovery was no longer possible.

Less than two years after filing, the firm obtained judgments for 43 of the victims. Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Martin Zilber entered individual awards ranging from $5 million to $30 million, calibrated to each victim's circumstances. The total across the 43 families reached $844 million. Florida's Third District Court of Appeal affirmed the judgments in July 2020. The Daily Business Review named Marks, Infante, and colleague Pablo Rojas among its Most Effective Lawyers of 2020 for the result.

Collection of the judgments proved complicated. LaMia had carried a $25 million aviation policy through Bolivian insurer Bisa, and the insurer had partially funded a humanitarian assistance fund for families who accepted early payments. The bulk of the $844 million remained unpaid and was directed toward the airline's reinsurers, a London underwriting syndicate led by Tokio Marine Kiln, and broker Aon. Podhurst retained U.K. firm Penningtons Manches Cooper to resist an anti-suit injunction the reinsurers had obtained in English courts to block U.S. proceedings. In December 2022 an English High Court judge vacated that injunction as to the reinsurers, allowing the Florida enforcement action to proceed. The Aon injunction remained in place, limiting any claim against the broker to English courts.

As of the English ruling, the principal judgment of $844 million remained the operative figure, with accumulated interest projected to push the total exposure above $920 million.