KTAR News, carrying an Associated Press report, said the five people killed when an Amazon cargo jet ran off the runway at Miami International Airport were all inside a van used to get to planes to clean them. Authorities said the jet crashed as it tried to land Sunday afternoon, overrunning its runway and striking the van on airport property. No conclusions about cause or responsibility have been announced, and nothing here should be read as a finding about anyone's conduct.
In Arizona, when a worker is killed on the job by someone other than the employer, two separate tracks open at once. Workers' compensation death benefits flow through the employer's carrier regardless of fault, and they generally bar a lawsuit against the employer. They do not bar a wrongful death claim against a third party whose conduct caused the death; Arizona's wrongful death statutes, A.R.S. § 12-611 through A.R.S. § 12-613, let a surviving spouse, children, parents, or the estate's personal representative sue that party for damages the family suffered. A separate survival action under A.R.S. § 14-3110 covers losses the person suffered before death. Most of these claims must be filed within two years under A.R.S. § 12-542. If a government entity, including an airport authority or a public agency, may share responsibility, A.R.S. § 12-821.01 requires a written notice of claim within 180 days of when the claim accrues, and that deadline is unforgiving.
Who Holds the Claim, and What It Covers
Arizona does not let every grieving relative file separately. A.R.S. § 12-612 limits a wrongful death action to the surviving spouse, the children, the parents or guardian, or the personal representative of the estate acting on behalf of those statutory beneficiaries. If none of those people exist, the estate brings it. One action covers all of them, which is why families should decide early who will serve as personal representative; that step usually requires opening a probate matter, and it is worth starting before the two-year window under A.R.S. § 12-542 is half gone.
The damages in a wrongful death case belong to the survivors: lost financial support and services, lost love and companionship, the family's grief and anguish, and funeral and burial expenses. The survival action under A.R.S. § 14-3110 is different money for a different loss, covering what the person who died endured personally, including medical bills incurred before death. Both are commonly pursued together.
Where Blame Gets Divided
Arizona uses pure comparative fault under A.R.S. § 12-2505. A jury assigns percentages of responsibility among everyone who contributed, and a claim is reduced by the share allocated to the person who died rather than eliminated. This matters in workplace and vehicle cases because defendants often argue the worker was somewhere they should not have been, or that a co-worker or the employer created the hazard. Even a substantial percentage assigned to the person who died does not close the case; it changes the recovery.
Multiple parties can also share responsibility. Depending on what an investigation shows, that can include an aircraft or vehicle operator, a maintenance contractor, an equipment manufacturer, a property or facility operator, or a public agency. Each potential defendant carries its own deadline, and the 180-day notice requirement in A.R.S. § 12-821.01 runs much faster than the general two-year limit.
What Families Should Do First
Request and keep the official reports as they become available, along with any employer incident documentation. Preserve the phone, uniform, badge, personal items, and anything returned by investigators, and photograph them before storing them. Write down the names and numbers of coworkers who were present while memories are fresh. Keep every bill, funeral invoice, and pay record in one place; support losses are proved with documents, not estimates.
Do not give a recorded statement to an insurer or a company representative before you understand who they represent, and do not sign a release or a settlement in exchange for burial assistance. Federal accident investigations and criminal inquiries can take a year or longer, and civil deadlines do not pause while they run. Filing a workers' compensation death claim does not waive a claim against a third party, though the carrier may later assert a lien against what the family recovers, which is one more reason to coordinate the two from the start.
If your family lost someone in a workplace or vehicle crash in Arizona, our Arizona wrongful death attorneys can explain which claims apply and which deadlines are already running.