In Re Air Crash Over Mid-Atlantic on June 1, 2009

ORDER GRANTING FORUM NON CONVENIENS DISMISSAL

In one of the most tragic airline accidents in history, an Air France flight left Brazil for France and crashed over the Atlantic Ocean on June 1, 2009. All 228 passengers and crew lost their lives. Many representatives of those passengers have filed lawsuits in the United States, and those suits were consolidated for pre-trial purposes in this Court. The Court has great sympathy for all the families who lost loved ones in this horrific accident and is interested in seeing those families fairly and timely compensated. But sympathy cannot be a substitute for an unbiased application of the law. Because in this Court’s view an unbiased application of the law shows that these matters should be dismissed for forum non conveniens, that is the Court’s Order.

I. GENERAL PROCEDURAL FRAMEWORK

There are four Motions before the Court, all broadly concerning where litigation regarding the crash should (and should not) take place. The four Motions are as follows: (1) Air France’s Motion pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1) to dismiss the domestic Plaintiffs’ case on the ground that this Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction under the MC; (2) Air France’s…