Government asks judge to rule on Hendrick case

The U.S. government has asked a judge to rule in its favor over the actions of air-traffic controllers in connection with lawsuits from three widows of the 2004 Hendrick Motorsports plane crash in Martinsville, Va. The government blames the Hendrick pilots, Richard Tracy and Elizabeth Morrison, for the accident, and asks that the judge rule before the case goes to trial. In its motion, the government alleges the pilots, when realizing they missed the airport, began to climb to find the airport instead of making a climbing right turn to avoid Bull Mountain, where the plane crashed, killing 10 people.

"In the final two minutes before the crash, after the aircraft was no longer in radio or radar contact with air traffic control, and after all alleged government negligence had occurred, the Hendrick pilots carelessly and recklessly violated applicably, mandatory Federal Aviation Regulations," the government motion states, "by doggedly persisting in flying toward rising terrain at low altitude, below a solid cloud deck, well after passing the point where the Federal Aviation Regulations mandate that a pilot terminate the approach and begin a climbing turn to avoid the rising terrain."

According to the government motion, the air-traffic controllers had no contact with the pilots for six minutes prior to the crash.

"It was entirely unforeseeable that the Hendrick pilots would have overflown the airport, would have continued flying at low altitude below clouds trying to find an airport that should have been in sight at the missed approach point but was not, and finally would have disregarded the prescribed missed approach procedure when they abandoned the approach," the government motion states.

"All these actions were in violation of federal regulations, safe piloting procedures and good sense. … The fact that two professional pilots employed by Hendrick Motorsports overshot the airport by more than nine miles, meanwhile failing to execute the proper missed approach procedure was not only unforeseeable, but extraordinary."