The Aviation Disaster Family Assistance Act: What It Requires and What It Means for Families

What the Aviation Disaster Family Assistance Act Requires

The law's duties sit mainly in two sections of Title 49 of the United States Code. The first, 49 U.S.C. § 1136, sets the duties of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the independent federal agency that investigates transportation accidents. The second, 49 U.S.C. § 41113, sets the duties of the airline itself.

The NTSB section applies to an aircraft accident within United States airspace, or airspace delegated to the United States, that involves an air carrier or a foreign air carrier, results in any loss of life, and for which the NTSB will serve as the lead investigative agency. All of those conditions appear together in the statute.

An air carrier has a specific meaning. Under 49 U.S.C. § 40102, it is "a citizen of the United States undertaking by any means, directly or indirectly, to provide air transportation." The same section defines a charter air carrier as an air carrier holding a certificate of public convenience and necessity that authorizes it to provide charter air transportation. The airline-plan section, § 41113, applies to each air carrier holding a certificate of public convenience and necessity under section 41102 of Title 49.

For a family, the stake is simple. These are duties written into federal law, not favors an airline may choose to offer. If you are trying to tell whether the people contacting you are doing what the law asks, the text of these two sections is the measuring stick.

This law is about assistance: contact, notification, information, remains, belongings and support. Any legal claim for damages rests on other law, discussed below. A first question many families ask is whether the crash meets the conditions above, since that decides whether these duties apply at all.

Who From the NTSB Contacts Your Family After an Air Carrier Accident

Section 1136(a) begins with timing. "As soon as practicable" after being notified of a covered accident, the NTSB's Chairman must take two steps.

First, the Chairman must designate and publicize the name and phone number of a director of family support services. That person is an NTSB employee and, in the statute's words, acts "as a point of contact within the Federal Government for the families of passengers involved in the accident and a liaison between the air carrier or foreign air carrier and the families."

Second, the Chairman must designate an independent nonprofit organization "with experience in disasters and posttrauma communication with families." That organization has primary responsibility for coordinating the emotional care, psychological care and family support services for passengers and their families.

Section 1136(b) gives the NTSB "primary Federal responsibility for facilitating the recovery and identification of fatally-injured passengers." Section 1136(c) then lists what the designated nonprofit must do:

• provide emotional care, psychological care and family support services, in coordination with the airline's disaster response team;
• take actions needed to give families an environment where they may grieve in private;
• meet with passengers and families who travel to the accident location, contact families who cannot travel, and keep contacting all passengers and affected families regularly until the organization, in consultation with the director, decides further help is no longer needed;
• explain to passengers and families the roles of the organization, government agencies and the airline in the accident and the activities that follow;
• arrange a suitable memorial service, in consultation with the families.

For someone in the first days after a crash, this means the federal government is supposed to reach out with a named contact, rather than leaving a family to find its way. Families often keep the director's name and number in one place, note who from the nonprofit has called, and bring questions about the airline to the director, whose role includes acting as liaison. The NTSB's family assistance work is also separate from its investigation of what happened, a difference explained in the NTSB's role compared with the FAA and returned to in the evidence section below.

What the Airline Has Promised Your Family Under 49 U.S.C. § 41113

The airline's duty begins before any accident. Section 41113(a) requires each covered air carrier to submit to the Secretary of Transportation and to the Chairman of the NTSB "a plan for addressing the needs of the families of passengers involved in any aircraft accident involving an aircraft of the air carrier and resulting in any loss of life."

Section 41113(b) says the plan must include, "at a minimum," a list of elements. The excerpt here is partial; the elements it includes are:

1. a plan for publicizing a reliable, toll-free telephone number, and for providing staff, to handle calls from families;
2. a process for notifying families before any public notice of passengers' names, using the designated nonprofit or other suitably trained individuals;
3. an assurance that this notice will be given to a family as soon as the carrier has verified the passenger was aboard, whether or not all names have been verified, and in person to the extent practicable;
4. an assurance that the carrier will give the NTSB's director and the designated organization, immediately on request, a passenger list based on the best available information, verified or not, and will update it periodically;
5. an assurance that each family will be consulted about the disposition of all remains and personal effects within the carrier's control;
6. an assurance that, if a family asks, any possession within the carrier's control, regardless of its condition, will be returned unless it is needed for the accident investigation or any criminal investigation;
7. an assurance that unclaimed possessions will be kept for at least 18 months;
8. an assurance that families will be consulted about any monument the carrier builds, including its inscription;
9. an assurance that families of nonrevenue passengers, and any other victim, including victims on the ground, will be treated the same as families of revenue passengers;
10. an assurance that the carrier will work with the designated organization on an ongoing basis;
11. an assurance that the carrier will provide reasonable compensation to the designated organization for its services;
12. an assurance that the carrier will help a family travel to the accident location and provide for the family's physical care while there;
13. an assurance that the carrier will commit sufficient resources to carry out the plan;
14. an assurance that, on a family's request, the carrier will say whether the passenger's name appeared on a preliminary passenger manifest;
15. an assurance of adequate training for employees and agents to meet the needs of survivors and family members.

The director of family support services is the NTSB's employee under § 1136, not the airline's. The statute does not use the term "large aircraft" in the text shown here, so this page does not define it.

For a family, the list is a practical reference: it describes what the airline promised, in writing, before anything happened. Several items turn on a family's request, such as asking whether a name appeared on a preliminary manifest or asking for a possession's return, so families may weigh which requests to make and keep a record of when they made them.

Victim Identification, Personal Effects, and the Medical Examiner's Role

Identification is one of the hardest parts of the aftermath, and the federal text speaks to it directly. Under § 1136(b), the NTSB has primary federal responsibility for "facilitating the recovery and identification" of passengers who died.

In practice, that means the NTSB leads the federal side, but it is not the only office involved. The state and local authorities where the accident happened also take part in identification, and their rules come from state law, which differs from state to state. If you are hearing from both federal and local officials, that is why.

Passenger names are protected in two ways. Under § 1136(d), the NTSB's director must request a passenger list from the carrier as soon as practicable. The director may not release that list to anyone, except that the director may, as the director considers appropriate, share information about a passenger with the passenger's family, or with a local, Tribal, State or Federal agency responsible for determining the passenger's whereabouts or welfare. An agency that receives it may not release it further without the director's express authority. Separately, the airline's plan under § 41113(b) must provide for notifying families before any public notice of names.

Belongings and remains are covered in the airline's plan elements listed above: consultation about remains and personal effects, return of possessions on request unless needed for an investigation, and keeping unclaimed items for at least 18 months.

If you are waiting to learn whether a loved one has been identified, these rules describe who is supposed to tell you, and that you are meant to hear it before the public does. Families often ask the director which local office is handling identification, and they may decide which belongings to request back and keep notes of each conversation about remains.

What the Act Does Not Cover — and Where State Law Governs

Assistance and compensation are different legal questions. The duties in §§ 1136 and 41113 run to the NTSB, the designated nonprofit and the airline, and they concern contact, notification, support, remains and belongings. Any claim for damages after an airline crash rests on other law.

Which law that is depends on the flight and the place. Three layers can come into play:

• The Montreal Convention, formally the Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules for International Carriage by Air, is an international treaty that can govern claims arising from international air travel.
• The Death on the High Seas Act, which 46 U.S.C. § 30301 names as the short title of its chapter, is a federal statute that can govern some deaths that occur at sea, including some aviation deaths over open water.
• State law, through wrongful-death statutes, survival statutes and comparative fault rules, often governs claims from domestic accidents.

State rules are not uniform. Limitation periods, fault rules, who may bring a wrongful-death action and the damages a state's law may allow all differ from state to state, and no state's rule is the rule everywhere. Texas and California, for example, each have their own rules, described on this site's Texas aviation accident page and California aviation accident page.

A family may also hear that federal law overrides state law in airline cases, which is called federal preemption. The Airline Deregulation Act provision at 49 U.S.C. § 41713 generally bars a state from enacting or enforcing a law "related to a price, route, or service of an air carrier," with stated exceptions. Whether that reaches a particular injury or death claim is a question courts decide on the facts, so it is one of the questions an attorney can help a family sort out. The wider picture is on this site's aviation accident lawyer page, and family claims are covered on the aviation wrongful death page.

What Families Often Weigh Before Deciding on Next Steps

Federal law limits how the NTSB's conclusions reach a courtroom. Section 1154(b) of 49 U.S.C. § 1154 states: "No part of a report of the Board, related to an accident or an investigation of an accident, may be admitted into evidence or used in a civil action for damages resulting from a matter mentioned in the report."

What this means for a family is that the NTSB's report, however detailed, cannot itself carry a civil case. The statute speaks of "a report of the Board." An investigation also produces other materials, often gathered in a public file called a docket, described on this site's NTSB docket page. How courts treat any particular item depends on what the item is.

Cockpit recordings have their own rule. Under § 1154(a), a party generally may not use discovery to obtain a cockpit recorder recording, or parts of a transcript or still images the NTSB has not made public. A court may allow it only after a private review and a finding that it is needed for a fair trial, and then under a protective order.

Families also follow the investigation's stage, and the terms they will see in the news are easier to read side by side. An open investigation is still underway. A preliminary report gives early facts, not a finding of cause. A final report is the completed account, and a probable cause is the NTSB's stated determination of why the accident happened. About any specific crash, only the NTSB's own records state where it stands.

The records families often keep include the airline's contact information and messages, anything received from the NTSB's director, notes about the passenger manifest, death certificates and medical records, and receipts for travel and funeral costs.

Limitation periods differ by state and by which treaty or federal statute governs, so the time to act depends on which law applies. Sorting out which framework covers a particular flight is the kind of question a conversation with our attorney can help a family think through.