Family of nurse killed in crash awarded $5 million

Kim Smith

Thursday, April 4, 2002 | 9:44 a.m.

The family of a Flight for Life nurse killed in an April 1999 helicopter crash will receive $5 million in compensation.

Metro Aviation attorney Thomas Kummer said a three-member arbitration panel awarded Kathy Batterman's husband and two teenage children $5 million to settle their lawsuit against Metro Aviation, the company that owned the helicopter.

The panel's decision is binding.

"I can say I'm disappointed by their decision, because I think the number was high, but it's very difficult to put a value on such a loss," Kummer said this morning.

Kummer said he had thought a more reasonable settlement would have been around $2.25 million to $2.5 million. The Battermans' attorney, Randall Mainor, asked for $6.5 million to $7 million, he said.

Kummer said Metro Aviation accepted responsibility for the crash and agreed to pay $1.5 million in economic damages, leaving the panel to decide what the family should receive for loss of love and affection.

Mainor could not be reached for comment this morning.

Batterman, 44, died April 3, 1999, along with fellow nurse Leroy Shelton, 37, and helicopter pilot James Bond Jr.

A report by the National Transportation Safety Board found that Bond, a former Soviet Air Force pilot, suffered "spatial disorientation and subsequent loss of control" during the crash about 15 minutes before midnight.

The report said visibility in the blowing snow and sleet was less than 50 feet when the helicopter plowed into the ground.

The aircraft, a Messerschmitt-Bolkow-Blohm BO-105, had been en route between Pahrump and Valley Hospital Medical Center when it crashed east of Old Ben Road, about a half-mile north of the Wilson Road intersection in the Spring Mountains west of Las Vegas, the report said.

The report said Bond had received a weather briefing at 5 p.m., calling for broken clouds, rain showers and strong northern winds. However, "there was no record of him (Bond) receiving an update," the report said. He wound up flying in freezing rain, then wet snow and finally freezing sleet, the report said.

Shelton's family settled its lawsuit against Metro Aviation for an undisclosed sum two years ago.