Pilot Killed in California Plane Accident Part of Flying Doctors Organization

Authorities have finally determined that the pilot who died from a plane accident last August 2 in California was a member of Los Medicos Voladores, a Spanish word which literally means “flying doctors”.

Accordingly, the volunteer group that arranged the trip said that the 66-year-old doctor, identified as Dr. James Richard Ungar of Yreka, California, was leaving an airport near Lake Tahoe to provide medical care in a small village in Mexico when the accident occurred. Ungar was a Northern California emergency room doctor.

Reports said that Ungar had just told the two other passengers to get off the plane so that he could test its worthiness to fly. Minutes upon take off, the plane struck a hangar at the Truckee airport. Ungar was pronounced dead at the scene.

The entire organization of flying doctors is sending its deepest condolences to the family and friends of Ungar, said Adrian Fenderson, a dentist and a spokesperson of the said community. Also, the organization is quite impressed with the selflessness that Ungar imposed during the last minutes of his life when he showed concern for the safety of the two other passengers of the plane.

In line with the said incident, a Los Angeles injury attorney noted that in similar cases of plane accidents, aviation law differs from other types of personal injury law. Most often, tort law is majorly implemented at the state level while in aviation law, both the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) and the National Travel Safety Board (NTSB) have their own regulations that take superiority over state laws. Moreover, other regulations like international treaties can also influence aviation law.