Written by Ali Razavi

Aviation accidents are rare, but when they happen, they leave behind damage that dwarfs most other personal injury cases. Medical bills run into the hundreds of thousands. Families lose breadwinners. Survivors face years of rehabilitation. And the legal fight — against airlines, manufacturers, charter operators, and their insurers — is nothing like suing a distracted driver. At Razavi Law Group | Who Hurt You?, we handle these cases from our office in San Francisco, and I want to be direct about what makes aviation litigation different, what California law requires, and how to choose the right attorney if you or your family has been affected.

How to Improve Aviation Accident Attorneys in San Francisco?

The honest answer: raise the standard for what qualified means in this specific field. Too many general personal injury lawyers take aviation cases without understanding the Federal Aviation Regulations (FARs), the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation process, or the preemption issues that arise when federal aviation law conflicts with California state tort law. The result is clients who settle far below what their case is worth, or who miss critical deadlines because their attorney didn’t know the difference between a state statute of limitations and a federal claim filing window.

In my practice, improving the quality of aviation accident representation in San Francisco starts with three things. First, attorneys need deep familiarity with Title 49 of the U.S. Code and 14 CFR — the core federal rules governing aviation safety. Second, they need relationships with credible aviation experts: accident reconstructionists, maintenance engineers, and air traffic control specialists who can speak to causation clearly enough for a jury to follow. Third, they need to understand how multiple defendants interact in one crash — the airline, the aircraft manufacturer, the parts supplier, the airport authority, the maintenance contractor. Cases that look simple rarely are.

For clients, improving your outcome means asking harder questions before you hire anyone. Ask whether the attorney has handled commercial airline cases specifically, not just general aviation or helicopter accidents. Ask how they interact with NTSB investigations — because an attorney who doesn’t understand that NTSB factual reports can be used in litigation, but that its probable cause findings require careful handling, will miss important strategy calls early on.

What Federal Laws Govern Aviation Accident Claims in California?

Aviation is one of the most federally dominated areas of personal injury law. The Federal Aviation Act of 1958 gave the federal government broad authority over airspace, aircraft certification, pilot licensing, and air traffic control. That means California’s state courts still hear aviation accident cases, but the substantive rules often trace back to federal standards.

The key framework most aviation accident lawyers rely on is found in the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, which preempts state laws that relate to airline “rates, routes, or services” — but courts have spent decades narrowing that preemption. Personal injury claims typically survive because they don’t directly regulate airline economics. Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute has solid background on how federal preemption operates in tort contexts if you want to dig into the doctrine.

The General Aviation Revitalization Act (GARA), passed in 1994, is another statute that catches clients off guard. It imposes an 18-year statute of repose on general aviation aircraft and component manufacturers. If the aircraft involved in your accident was manufactured more than 18 years before the crash, GARA may bar product liability claims against the manufacturer — unless an exception applies, such as a pilot certificate holder operating for commercial purposes, or a newly replaced component. This is not an obvious issue. I’ve seen cases where a client came in with a promising product liability theory, and GARA eliminated it before we could serve the complaint.

California’s own statute of limitations for personal injury is two years from the date of injury under Code of Civil Procedure § 335.1. For wrongful death, the same two-year clock generally applies. But federal claims, claims against government entities like the FAA or a government-operated airport, and workers’ compensation cross-claims each carry different deadlines. Missing any one of them can extinguish real money. FindLaw provides accessible explanations of statutes of limitations by state if you need a starting reference point.

Our aviation accident attorneys across California map these deadlines from day one, because in aviation cases, early investigation is also early evidence preservation.

How Does the NTSB Investigation Affect a Civil Lawsuit?

The NTSB investigates every accident involving a civil aircraft in the United States. For major commercial accidents, that investigation can last two to three years and produce thousands of pages of docket materials — cockpit voice recorder transcripts, flight data recorder readouts, maintenance records, witness statements, and metallurgical analysis of failed components.

Here’s what I tell clients immediately after an accident: the NTSB investigation and your civil lawsuit run on parallel tracks, and you need someone managing both simultaneously. The NTSB does not determine civil liability — its mandate is accident prevention, not blame. But its factual findings, witness interviews, and technical reports become foundational to civil litigation.

Federal regulations under 49 CFR Part 835 restrict how NTSB materials can be used in court proceedings. The agency’s Board Member or staff cannot testify as expert witnesses in private litigation. Its probable cause determination is not admissible in most federal courts. But the underlying factual docket — the interview transcripts, the maintenance records, the performance data — is available and very much usable.

One practical consequence: your attorney needs to monitor the NTSB investigation actively, not wait for the final report. Docket materials are often released in stages, and early factual submissions can reveal liability angles that disappear or get framed differently in the final report. We’ve built cases around NTSB docket materials that the final report treated as minor findings. The American Bar Association has published guidance for attorneys on working within NTSB investigation parameters, and their aviation and space law section is a resource I’ve found useful for staying current on practice standards.

If the accident involved a government employee — say, an air traffic controller at SFO — you’re looking at a Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) claim against the United States. That requires an administrative claim filed with the relevant federal agency before you can sue. The administrative process has its own timeline, and failure to exhaust it bars your lawsuit entirely.

What Damages Can Aviation Accident Victims Recover Under California Law?

California does not cap compensatory damages in most personal injury cases, which matters enormously in aviation litigation where the injuries are often catastrophic. Victims or their families can pursue economic damages — past and future medical expenses, lost earnings and earning capacity, rehabilitation costs, home modification costs — and non-economic damages for pain and suffering, emotional distress, and loss of consortium.

In cases involving willful misconduct or conscious disregard for safety, California allows punitive damages under Civil Code § 3294. Aviation punitive claims are rare but not unheard of. If an operator knowingly flew a mechanically compromised aircraft, falsified maintenance logs, or ignored FAA airworthiness directives, that pattern of conduct can support a punitive claim. Justia maintains a searchable database of California jury verdicts and settlements that gives a sense of actual outcomes in serious personal injury cases, though aviation cases vary enormously by fact pattern.

One area where clients routinely underestimate their damages: future earning capacity. In my experience, the defense side will produce an economist who discounts your client’s future earnings aggressively — assuming minimal wage growth, applying a high discount rate, and assuming the earliest possible retirement date. Getting the right forensic economist on your side, someone who can credibly defend a full working-life calculation, can shift the damages number by millions in a serious case.

For surviving family members, a California wrongful death claim allows recovery of financial support the deceased would have provided, loss of companionship, grief, and reasonable funeral expenses. California does not allow wrongful death claimants to recover for the decedent’s pre-death pain and suffering — that goes through a survival action filed separately by the estate.

How Do You Choose the Right Aviation Accident Lawyer in San Francisco?

I’m obviously not a neutral party here, but I can tell you what I’d look for if I were on the other side of this relationship.

First, resources matter more in aviation than in most litigation. Discovery in a major aviation case can involve deposing engineers in Germany, retaining five or six expert witnesses, and funding years of litigation before a trial date. Firms that don’t have the financial capacity to front those costs will be pressured to settle early. Ask the attorney directly: “How do you fund case costs, and what happens if this case goes three years before resolution?”

Second, trial experience is not the same as settlement experience. Most cases settle, but the size of the settlement is almost entirely a function of how credibly you can threaten to take the case to trial. An attorney who has never picked a jury in a complex technical case will not get the same respect from a major airline’s defense team as one who has.

Third, communication matters. Aviation cases move slowly — investigations take years, discovery is voluminous. Clients deserve regular updates, not just a call every six months when something happens. When you’re evaluating attorneys, pay attention to how they handle your initial inquiry. If they’re hard to reach before they have your business, they’ll be harder to reach after.

At Razavi Law Group | Who Hurt You?, we serve clients throughout California, including those who’ve been injured in accidents involving aircraft operating in or out of SFO. Our San Francisco location puts us close to the federal courts where aviation cases are often litigated, and we coordinate with aviation experts regularly. We also handle related serious injury cases, including California personal injury, truck accidents, and car accidents throughout the state.

One thing I want to be clear about: aviation accident cases are not a volume practice. We don’t take every case that calls. We take the cases where we believe we can genuinely move the needle for the client — where the evidence supports the claim, the damages are significant, and we can commit the resources the case needs.

What Should You Do Immediately After an Aviation Accident?

The first 72 hours after an aviation accident are the most consequential for your legal case, even if you’re focused entirely on physical survival and medical care. Here’s what I recommend, and what I’ve seen clients do wrong.

Get medical attention immediately, even if you feel relatively uninjured. Adrenaline masks serious injuries — internal bleeding, traumatic brain injuries, spinal injuries — that don’t present symptoms right away. A gap in medical treatment becomes a gap in your medical record, which the defense will use to argue your injuries weren’t serious.

Document everything you can safely document. Photographs of the accident scene, your injuries, any visible aircraft damage. Preserve any communications — texts, emails, boarding passes, baggage claim tickets, any correspondence with the airline or charter operator. Don’t post anything about the accident on social media. Defense investigators monitor plaintiff social media from the day litigation begins, and sometimes before.

Do not give a recorded statement to any airline representative, insurer, or their investigator without an attorney present. This is not about hiding facts — it’s about not making binding admissions before you understand the full picture of what happened and why. The American Bar Association has consistent guidance across practice areas: retain counsel before speaking to opposing parties.

Contact an attorney with aviation experience before the investigation progresses further. Evidence preservation — securing flight data, maintenance records, communications between pilots and controllers — requires legal action sometimes, including litigation holds and emergency preservation orders. The sooner your attorney is involved, the better your factual record.

If you or your family has been injured in an aviation accident anywhere in California, get legal advice before you accept anything from an airline or insurer. These cases are complex, the stakes are high, and the defendants are well-resourced.

Contact us to schedule a consultation with our team. You can also reach us directly at (415)-384-5025. Our office is located at 71 Stevenson St Suite 400, San Francisco, CA 94105, United States. We work on contingency for aviation accident cases — you pay nothing unless we recover for you.