Florida Airplane Accident Lawyer
Florida has more small plane traffic than almost anywhere in the country: flight schools, banner planes working the beaches, seaplanes on the lakes, and weekend pilots in and out of municipal airports. When one of those flights ends badly, the questions start immediately, and the first answers families get are the wrong ones.
I am Louis P. Meyer, Esq., a Senior Attorney at Kanner & Pintaluga, P.A. in Tampa. My practice focuses on personal injury cases across Florida, including injury and wrongful death claims from general aviation accidents. This page explains how those claims work: who investigates, what the investigation does not decide, and where liability and insurance get sorted out.
What this practice covers
Most Florida aviation cases involve general aviation rather than the airlines: single engine airplanes, flight training, charter and sightseeing flights, and amphibious aircraft. The injuries are severe, the fact patterns are technical, and engine failures, fuel problems, maintenance errors, and training accidents each raise different questions about who is responsible.
An aviation claim can reach the pilot, the aircraft owner, a flight school, a maintenance provider, and the manufacturer of the airplane or of a component inside it. Each carries its own insurance, and aviation policies are written differently from car policies, with exclusions and limits often calculated per passenger rather than per accident. The legal work is building the technical record alongside the injury record, with experts who understand airplanes the way treating physicians understand injuries.
What the NTSB does, and what it does not
The National Transportation Safety Board, known as the NTSB, investigates civil aviation accidents in the United States. Its investigators secure the wreckage, gather records and data, and publish a probable cause finding. Families often assume that finding settles the legal case. It does not. Its mission is safety: figuring out what happened so it does not happen again. The Board does not assign legal fault, does not decide anyone’s claim, and its probable cause report is generally not admissible as evidence in a civil lawsuit over the crash. A civil case has to be built separately, with independent experts and independent proof.
The physical evidence has a shelf life. Once the NTSB releases the wreckage, it can be repaired, sold, or scrapped. Logbooks, maintenance records, fuel samples, radar data, recorded radio traffic, and onboard data all matter, and not all of it waits around. Florida weather finishes what a crash started on anything left unprotected. Preserving the wreckage and the records early is not a detail in an aviation case. It is the foundation.
One more trap is built into the age of the fleet. Much of Florida’s general aviation fleet is decades old, and a federal law called the General Aviation Revitalization Act generally bars claims against a manufacturer once an aircraft or a part passes eighteen years, with exceptions, including certain replacement parts. Whether a manufacturer is in or out of a case is a legal fight of its own, and the answer changes where any recovery comes from.
How I approach this work
I approach an aviation case the way I approach any serious injury claim: deadlines first, evidence preserved, coverage mapped, and an honest evaluation. In practice that means moving quickly on the wreckage and the records, understanding what the NTSB process will and will not produce, and lining up the experts before opinions harden. It also means straight talk with families. These claims are technical, they can move slowly, and the defendant the public blames first turns out to be protected by federal law. You will hear that from me at the beginning, not after a year of waiting.
Questions families ask after a Florida plane crash
Who investigates a plane crash in Florida?
The NTSB leads the investigation, with participation from the Federal Aviation Administration and usually the manufacturer and operator. Local law enforcement secures the scene first. The NTSB takes custody of the wreckage and records, and its process runs separately from any legal claim.
Will the NTSB report prove my case?
No. The probable cause finding is a safety determination, and federal law generally keeps the Board’s report out of evidence in civil actions arising from the crash. The civil claim stands or falls on evidence developed independently: the wreckage itself, maintenance and flight records, witness accounts, and qualified experts.
Who can be responsible for a general aviation crash?
The pilot, the aircraft owner, a flight school or instructor, a maintenance provider, the manufacturer of the aircraft or of a failed component, and occasionally others, including air traffic control, which raises a separate claim against the federal government. Most crashes are not one mistake. They are a chain, and each link belongs to somebody.
The airplane was more than twenty years old. Does that end a claim against the manufacturer?
Not necessarily, but it is a real obstacle. The General Aviation Revitalization Act sets a statute of repose that generally bars manufacturer claims after eighteen years, with exceptions for certain newer replacement parts. The age of the airplane and of each major component has to be analyzed piece by piece, and other defendants remain regardless of how the manufacturer question comes out.
What insurance pays for injuries in a plane crash?
Aviation liability insurance carried by the owner or operator, and sometimes coverage held by a flight school, charter operator, or maintenance provider. These policies frequently carry per passenger sublimits, meaning each injured person’s recovery is capped below the policy’s headline limit. That shapes the value of a case early.
How long do I have to file an aviation injury claim in Florida?
For most negligence and wrongful death claims, Florida law allows two years. Claims based on air traffic control errors are claims against the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act, and they require an administrative claim to be filed first, on a strict deadline, before any lawsuit is possible.
The bottom line
After a plane crash, two investigations happen. One belongs to the government and ends in a safety report. The other decides whether anyone pays for what was lost, and it runs on wreckage, records, and deadlines that do not wait for grief to settle. Confusing the first investigation for the second is the most expensive mistake a family can make.
Louis P. Meyer, Esq.
Senior Attorney, Kanner & Pintaluga, P.A.
100 S. Ashley Drive, Suite 610, Tampa, FL 33602
Phone: 561-206-2949
Email: lmeyer@kpattorney.com
About the Author
Louis P. Meyer, Esq. is a Senior Attorney at Kanner & Pintaluga, P.A., where his practice focuses on personal injury cases and first party property damage claims across Florida, and includes aviation accident injury claims arising from general aviation crashes. He was selected to Florida Rising Stars in 2024, 2025, and 2026. He is bilingual in English and Spanish, writes the LouisTheLawyer publication on Substack, and hosts the podcast Off The Record by Louis Meyer. He holds an LL.M. from the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University, a J.D. from Whittier Law School, and a B.A. from UCLA, graduating with Honors. He was admitted to The Florida Bar on November 23, 2020, Bar No. 1024811. This page is general information about how aviation accident claims work. It is not legal advice about any specific accident or injury.
Louis P. Meyer, Esq., Senior Attorney, Kanner & Pintaluga, P.A., 100 S. Ashley Drive, Suite 610, Tampa, FL 33602. Phone: 561-206-2949. Email: lmeyer@kpattorney.com.
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