Lamborghini Owner Sues over Collision with FBI Plane

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Does the concept of “see and avoid” apply to car drivers on airports? What about the notion of right of way at taxiway intersections? According to The Associated Press, both will be up to a judge to decide in a lawsuit launched by an Aurora, Ore., pilot and airport business owner against the FBI. Marlowe Treit is suing the FBI over a May 2006 accident in which the low-slung Lamborghini he was driving on a taxiway was sliced open by the prop on the FBI’s Cessna 206 as it was crossing the taxiway at Aurora State Airport.

Treit claims his little black car had the right of way on the privately owned taxiway where the collision occurred. In a statement to the NTSB, the unidentified agent taxiing the plane says he didn’t see the car until “out the left side window of the aircraft I saw a small black sports car dart from under the prop moving to my left, gushing fluid.”

The ventilated Lamborghini hasn’t been driven since and Treit is suing for $105,000. He claims the pilot should have seen him. However, the NTSB sees it slightly differently and gave probable cause for the accident as “the failure of both the pilot of the aircraft traveling on a taxi lane and the operator of the automobile driving on a taxi lane to maintain an adequate visual lookout and their failure to see and avoid one another.”

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