> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.smdp.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # NTSB rules pilot to blame in airplane crash - URL: https://www.smdp.com/ntsb-rules-pilot-to-blame-in-airplane-crash/ - Published: 2002-06-12T15:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-23T00:19:45.000Z - Author: Carolyn Sackariason - Tags: Crime, Santa Monica Airport, #archive-import *Ruling may help Santa Monica law firm’s case* A ruling by the National Transportation Safety Board that the pilot of a plane owned by a Santa Monica-based producer was to blame for its fatal crash in Aspen, Colo. last year, has given a local law firm more ammunition in its wrongful death suit against the charter company. The family of a Los Angeles man who was killed when the chartered jet crashed filed suit in March against the plane’s owner and operator, as well as the estates of the pilots. The family of Mario Aguilar, represented by Santa Monica-based attorneys Brian Panish and Kevin Doyle, sued Airborne Charter Inc., the company that the jet was registered to and Avjet Corp., which housed the plane in a hangar at Burbank Airport. Airborne Charter is run by Santa Monica-based Cinergi Pictures founder and producer Andrew G. Vajna, who is responsible for films like “First Blood,” “Total Recall,” “Air America” and “Jacob’s Ladder.” The estates of pilot Robert Frisbie and co-pilot Peter Kowalczyk also are targeted in the suit, which was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court downtown. The families of several other victims have filed similar lawsuits, some of which have been settled, according to Panish. On March 29, 2001, the 20-year-old Gulfstream twin engine jet, which was en route from Los Angeles to Aspen, slammed into a hillside just 500 yards short of the runway in a light snowstorm. All 15 passengers and three crew members aboard died. The passengers were headed to Aspen for a ski weekend to celebrate the birthday of one member of the group. The NTSB ruled Tuesday that the pilot came in too low and could not see the runway. The board blamed the accident on the flight crew’s failure to follow normal procedures. Aviation Safety Director John Clark said the pilot was allowed to fly below the minimum 10,200 feet when trying to land but only if he could see the airport runway. “It’s clear to us he didn’t have it in sight the whole time, if he saw it at all,” Clark said. The pilot is supposed to abort the landing if he loses sight of the runway, Clark said, but the board said he was under pressure from the person who chartered the plane to land at Aspen rather than divert to another airport. Doyle, the co-counsel representing Aguilar’s father, Julius Szabo, said the NTSB’s ruling backs up the suit’s claim. “We know that when the plane took off it wouldn’t put it in Aspen before the curfew,” he said Tuesday. “It shouldn’t have taken off from the get-go.” The cockpit recorder and facts revealed in the investigation indicate that the pilots failed to consider vital information in an attempt to beat Aspen’s 7 p.m. curfew. The plane, which took off from Burbank, stopped at LAX to pick up more passengers, but it was already running late. The flight plan showed the plane landing in Aspen at 6:46 p.m., 12 minutes before the curfew. The voice recorder box picked up conversations that indicate the two pilots did-n’t want to miss curfew but the weather in Aspen was becoming increasingly more dangerous as a light snow was coming from the north, the same direction they were traveling, according to an article on AINONLINE.com, an Internet site for aviation news. Doyle said Avjet ultimately may be responsible for the crash, since it allegedly put its customers’ wishes before safety concerns. “We know there was an error, but how high up on the food chain did the error occur?” he asked. Frisbie had more than 10,000 flight hours, according to Avjet officials. Kowalczyk had recorded more than 5,500 flight hours. “The aircraft was operated by a highly experienced crew and as the primary crew assigned to the aircraft, had flown multiple trips to and from Aspen during the month of March,” Marc Foulkrod, president of Avjet, told the Aspen Daily News in a prepared statement days after the crash. The weather around Aspen that night was fairly clear, except for the area near the airport, where a squall of snow was circling. Witnesses say they saw the airplane approach the runway and then bank to the right, where they crashed into a bluff directly in front of the runway and next to the only highway leading into the ski resort. The approach to the airport in the Colorado resort community requires planes to sharply descend to a single runway surrounded by mountains. The approach to the Aspen airport requires a steep descent to a single runway. Three planes trying to land before the Gulfstream had to abort their attempts, and only one managed to touch down at the airport. Two days before the crash, the Federal Aviation Administration had restricted certain nighttime landings that required the pilot to use instruments to help locate the runway. But the notice never reached the Aspen airport, and air traffic controllers gave Frisbie permission to land in light snow. In addition, while controllers in California told Frisbie of the FAA restrictions before he took off, safety board officials said the warning was not clear and may not have been understood by the pilot. After the crash, the FAA issued a second notice, prohibiting all nighttime instrument landings. The safety board said the unclear wording of the notice and the failure to tell Aspen controllers of the restrictions contributed to the crash. FAA spokesman Les Dorr said the agency had changed its procedures. (The Associated Press contributed to this story.) *Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 12, 2002.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/061202.pdf?ref=smdp.com)