Air and sea

In his maritime blog, attorney Dennis Bryant notes a news release from the Washington State Department of Ecology, which stated that a commercial airliner jettisoned approximately 5,000 gallons of jet fuel over Puget Sound after experiencing an in-flight emergency. The airliner landed safely at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

Bryant says the incident highlights the different ways that enforcement agencies react to aviation and maritime fuel spills:

"Experience has shown, numerous times, that if a vessel discharges oil into the water in an emergency, civil penalties will surely follow and criminal penalties may also be imposed. With the aviation industry, those same agencies merely say, as they did here: 'While all oil is poisonous to the environment, Ecology does not expect the jettisoned fuel from the April 29 incident caused serious environmental harm. Any person or property hit directly with liquid fuel should wash it off with soap and water.'

"I am certainly not advocating that the airline or the pilot in this incident be penalized, nor am I suggesting that this state agency is responding to this incident in a manner different than other agencies have responded to other similar incidents. I am, though, strongly advocating that federal and state enforcement agencies should be no less solicitous of the maritime industry as they are of the aviation industry in such cases."

Dennis Bryant’s Maritime Blog
Washington State Department of Ecology