An ex-pilot for Virgin Australia is suing the airline for one million dollars relating to back injuries he alleges he suffered due to lugging around 18kg of flight manuals, something he states could not have occurred if the information was stored on an iPad.
The Daily Telegraph reports on the case. David Linton Kloster was a pilot for Virgin back in December 2009, when he suffered a back injury. Surgery followed, but he’s suing Virgin for economic loss relating to the injury, and as per the Telegraph report, documents lodged in the Queensland Supreme Court state that
The defendant (Virgin Australia) exposed the plaintiff (Mr Kloster) to a risk of injury which could have been avoided by the exercise of reasonable care. (Virgin Australia) failed to have in place a system of work whereby charts and rules could have been left on board its aircraft or kept electronically on an iPad.
There is one slight problem with this theory, at least from a dating point of view. As TUAW points out, the injury took place in 2009; it wasn’t possible to buy an iPad in Australia until May 2010.
While I can’t comment on the case per se (I don’t wish to get sued today) , but it’s certainly something I saw in action on my recent UK trip; the head of the BA flight crew on the plane I was on had an iPad to track passenger numbers, something he told me was part of a company-wide rollout of around 2,000 iPads. [Daily Telegraph]
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