SAD DAY (hangar collapse - TB20 damage)

Our Aero Club has:
(a) Hangar level 1 insurance (which covers Public Liability)
(b) Hangar level 2 insurance which is purely to cover the exact event in your photos.

The owner of the Hangar is clearly liable. You rent a Hangar to protect your Aircraft. Your remedy is to sue the Hangar owner and they can in turn sue the Builder but the prudent Hangar owner should have insurance for this. If not, they chose not to insure to save money so they should reap the consequences.

Canuck wrote:

I would dig into the insurance aspects carefully; first with your policy, then with the landlord. Perhaps you can find that there is actually coverage. If the damage is very costly (which seems to be likely), then also seek professional advice from an insurance solicitor and loss assessor.

For example, the landlord’s hangar policy might not cover contents. Hence, the insurer might say that the damaged aircarft are not covered.

However, the landlord may have liability coverage in addition to the building insurance. If you ask a lawyer to write a letter to claim on the liabiliy policy, e.g. that the landlord failed to have the building built/maintained/inspected/surveyed (or whatever is the case) correctly, then the insurer might engage. You can also try the same with the building contractor.

Regardless, if you are able, document the cause of the incident as thoroughly as possible. Photograph, take notes, and measurements of construction aspects that failed, before they are cleaned up and thrown away. Hundreds of photos, both near and far, of the failed elements. This may help significantly in proving a case if there was a real defect in the construction.

You can also engage a civil/structural engineer who is experienced with failures (i.e. a forensic engineer) to document the cause and write a report.

This.

This sad type of accidental damage is what insurance is for. Presuming that you have hull insurance on your plane, claim that, and let the insurance companies fight it out. Presuming you have hull insurance: Is the hull damaged? Yes! Was that damage caused by a person’s deliberate action? No. Does the claim exceed the deductible? Yes. Insurer sends an adjuster, and pays claim. If they choose to recover from the hangar owner, that’s not your concern.

If you didn’t have hull insurance (I didn’t when I lost my plane in a hangar fire last summer), you probably still have a claim against the hangar owner, it’ll just be more work for you. Buildings are not supposed to fall down. If it was properly made, and inspected, you should feel safe standing beside your plane in a big wind. This claim is big enough to be worth some effort on your part to not have to pay out of your pocket to fix it.

Sad to see a damaged bird. Good luck with dealing with the situation

Very sorry to hear this!

The liability is country dependent. In the UK, say you park a car on a public road, and adjacent is a private field with a big tree. The tree gets blown over by wind and smashes your car. The landowner is not liable – unless the tree was known to be dodgy, reported so, etc. This is how the local govt gets out of nearly all claims for potholes (they claim they didn’t know).

So it falls to your own “ground risks” insurance. The company might then, at their option, try to recover the money from the hangar/land owner.

Of course you could then get kicked off the airport, or kicked out of the hangar; this is the standard “airfield politics” issue which I got to know close-up in 2002 following a prop strike in a pothole.

Probably the expensive parts are undamaged, so this is “just sheet metal work”…

Other than the obvious, the problem I see is that the fuselage forward of the detached tail cone appears to be damaged, making this look to be a big job. It’d be nice if I were wrong about that. It’s really a shame regardless, sorry to see it occur.

The wings and tail will have to be removed (well, even just to transport it for repair) and the fuselage put in a jig – which means finding a shop who either has a jig, or will make one. I’ve don this type of repair to a few planes, either in a jig, or we made one. Though the sheet metal work itself is not overwhelming, the process and certification for the work will be its own task.

If a jig is simply not available, a plan B is possible, I’ve done it to a helicopter ,and C210 fuselage (spar change). Do not allow anyone to disassemble the fuselage until you have a certain and approved process to put it back together.

If you run out of options, PM me before any disassembly….

@Zouszou my sympathies

If, as you say, and for whatever reason you do not have insurance coverage then it will be more legal work for you , but you do have recourse. You will of course hire professional technical and legal advise before making big decisions. I am with @pilotDAR on this: minimize any disassembly until you have a committed path for repair.

In parallel you will be doing your legal diligences, but if you are 100% sure you have zero insurance recourse, then document everything and don’t let legal proceedings stop you from either fixing the aircraft, or, if not economically sensible (which you will have to properly document to yourself and later affected third parties), replacing it. Insurance is always happy that the affected party used reasonable steps to minimize the damage after the event, including that caused by keeping you grounded for some time.

Fix it ideally sooner rather than later: although this will increase your financial burden, it will decrease most other burdens.

Good luck!

They will come back to me with the repair plan on their facility. I decide to do so, I want it done by the factory.

I think that’s the best decision. It will probably be more expensive than in the other facilities but you’ll have peace of mind that it has been done properly. Moreover, if you decide to sell the aircraft, factory repair looks much better in the logbook.