ABSTRACT
Common law principles relating to professional negligence of the air carrier in aviation accidents and determination of their validity in the light of rapidly emerging trends in the area of safety and security in aviation are steadily becoming important in the rapid evolution of air transport. (See Chapter 12, p. 191, ‘Liability under the Warsaw Convention’.)
Medical Emergencies on Board
The notion of wilful misconduct has frequently been associated with the inability of the carrier to provide medical assistance in an emergency and, a fortiori, the failure on the part of the carrier to take adequate measures to ensure that such emergencies would be handled diligently and professionally on board.1 A development in the field of aviation medicine, introduced in the summer of 1996, indicated a seminal innovation in this area, when United Airlines announced the fitting of a telemedicine unit on one of its commercial aircraft. The unit, which is the size of a large briefcase, is called Telemedic Systems Equipment and was fitted in one of the carrier’s Boeing 767 aircraft on a three-month trial basis.2 It is designed to improve the crew’s response to a medical emergency by measuring a number of the body’s vital signs, including ECG, blood pressure and heart rate and transmitting them, in real time, to a doctor on the ground.
