DATE: Thursday, November 13, 1997           TAG: 9711130504

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B9   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MARC DAVIS, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   44 lines

SETTLEMENT IS REACHED IN '95 SUFFOLK PLANE CRASH THE FAMILY OF 1 OF 3 MEN KILLED IN THE CRASH AGREES TO SETTLE FOR $60,000.

A fatal 1995 plane crash in Suffolk has produced a $60,000 out-of-court settlement for one victim's family.

The family of Raymond A. Smith, 59, of Gloucester County, who died in the crash, has agreed to settle its wrongful-death lawsuit against a suburban Atlanta airport that allegedly refueled the plane improperly.

The settlement was filed Monday in Norfolk's federal court and is subject to a judge's approval.

A second lawsuit over the same crash, filed by the family of pilot Emory E. Bolton of Suffolk, who also died, has also been settled, but details are not yet available.

The small, private passenger plane, a Piper Cherokee Six, crashed March 12, 1995. It was en route from suburban Atlanta when it ran out of gas and crashed into woods about five miles west of Suffolk Municipal Airport. The pilot was trying to make an emergency landing on a grassy strip.

Three men were killed: Smith, Bolton and another passenger. Three passengers were badly injured.

In March, two lawsuits were filed in federal court - one by Smith's family, the other by Bolton's. Each named eight defendants: the Clayton County Airport Authority in Georgia, two airport employees who fueled Bolton's airplane and five members of the Clayton County Board of Commissioners.

Bolton's lawsuit sought $1 million; Smith's $500,000.

On the morning of the crash, Bolton flew his plane and the five passengers from Suffolk to Atlanta to see the Purolator 500 NASCAR race. He left the plane at the airport with instructions to refill all four gas tanks. Only the two main tanks were filled. Two smaller wingtip tanks were not.

Bolton apparently did not visually check the tanks before takeoff. Even though the pilot had gas gauges in the cockpit, it is possible he did not know he was low on fuel at takeoff, said Joseph A. Gawrys, a Norfolk lawyer who represented the Smith family.

The National Transportation Safety Board later investigated the crash. It found that the ``probable cause'' of the crash was ``the pilot's inadequate preflight and improper in-flight planning/decision, which resulted in fuel exhaustion.'' KEYWORDS: LAWSUIT ACCIDENT PLANE

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu