Christel Gisela Sopcak, Milan Sopcak, Sara June Sopcak, Libuse Mlcoch, Jaraslav Lutz Maryska v. Northern Mountain Helicopter Service

Appellants appeal the district court’s Fed. R.Civ.P. 12(b)(1) dismissal of their wrongful death and personal injury action brought under the Warsaw Convention. Appellants contend that the district court erred by concluding that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction before allowing them to conduct discovery and holding an evidentiary hearing on the. question of jurisdiction. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 , and we affirm.

I

Appellants include the survivor of a February 7, 1990 helicopter crash and the relatives of several passengers who died in the crash. The helicopter, owned and operated by Ap-pellee Northern Mountain Helicopter, Inc. (Northern Mountain), was flying from Johnny Mountain Mine, a gold mine, in British Columbia to an airport in Wrangell, Alaska. At the airport, the passengers, all mine employees, planned to transfer to a waiting plane, owned and operated by Canada West Air, and continue on to Vancouver, British Columbia. Skyline Gold Corporation, the employer, paid for and arranged the flights with two separate charter services. Northern Mountain flew miners on a shuttle flight from Johnny Mountain to Wrangell, on either a fixed-wing aircraft or…