The sister of one of two Maui County Planning Department employees who died in a plane crash on Lanai in February is suing the airline, the company that owns the crashed aircraft and the estate of the pilot, who also died in the crash.
Kathleen Kern, 50, Tremaine Balberdi, 53, and pilot Richard Rooney, 66, died when their chartered Maui Air 10-seat aircraft crashed Feb. 26 shortly after takeoff from Lanai Airport. Three other Maui County employees — Doug Miller, Mark King and James Giroux — survived but were injured in the crash.
Kern’s sister Heather Shannon filed a lawsuit in state court Friday against Maui Island Air, Maui Aircraft Leasing and Rooney’s estate.
The Maui County employees were on Lanai for a planning commission meeting and were on their way back to Maui when their plane crashed shortly after takeoff, about a mile southeast of Lanai Airport.
The National Transportation Safety Board said the crash left a 160-foot-long scar in the ground and a 640-foot-long debris field in an area known as Miki Basin. The crash also ignited some brush in the former pineapple field.
No one from Maui Island Air, which operates as Maui Air-Volcano Air Tours, responded to phone and email requests for comment. Phone calls to Maui Aircraft Leasing were routed to Maui Air Tours.
One of the survivors told a Transportation Safety Administration official that the aircraft made an extreme bank to the right after takeoff.
Giroux, a deputy corporation counsel, is credited with pulling the other survivors from the burning wreckage and calling 911.
Kern was project leader and senior planner for the Lanai Community Plan. Balberdi was a department secretary, Miller is a planner on the Lanai Community Plan team and King is a geographic information systems analyst on the team.
