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player ready...The mother of 6-year-old Joshua Woods blames air traffic controllers and two Southwest Airlines pilots for her son’s Dec. 8 death when a jetliner skidded off a snowy runway at Midway, crashed through an airport barrier and struck the family car on Central Avenue.
“I’m angry towards the pilot and the tower,” Lisa Woods said Tuesday. “I feel something could have been done to prevent all this. Why weren’t they redirected somewhere else? … There are a lot of questions, and I want answers.”
Seated near a sparkling Christmas tree and six stockings in the living room of their Leroy, Ind., home, Lisa and Leroy Woods said the family is having a hard time getting through the holidays without Joshua, who loved Army helicopters, trucks and trains. Two of Joshua’s three brothers, Joey, 9, and Jacob, 4, repeatedly ask their parents if they can buy presents for him, Lisa Woods said.
Attorneys for the family plan to file suit in Cook County Circuit Court seeking unspecified damages against the airline, the pilots and the City of Chicago, said family spokesman and lawyer Ron Stearney Jr. The lawsuit would allege negligence and wrongful death, and seek damages for pain and suffering, he said.
Two passengers aboard Southwest Flight 1248 are already suing the Dallas-based airline. Mariko L.A. Bennett and Stanley L. Penn allege they were injured when the Boeing 737 slammed through the airport barrier.
They also allege negligence by the airline in a number of ways, including the decision to land in inclement weather and that the pilot touched down too far along the runway. The suit also names the city and Boeing as co-defendants.
Southwest spokeswoman Linda Rutherford said the company had not received the lawsuit and could not comment pending completion of an investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board.
Leroy and Lisa Woods said they still are in pain from physical injuries they suffered when the plane smashed into the family’s car. Joshua, who was in the back seat, died of compression asphyxiation, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
Leroy Woods, a truck driver, said his “whole face hurt” from five fractures to his nose and skull, and that he has lost some of his hearing because of the noise of the airplane.
“I don’t think I’ll ever drive a truck again, especially if it’s dark and snowing,” he said. “I’m afraid I’ll relive it.”
Lisa Woods, a stay-at-home mom who is training to become a corrections officer, said her shoulder, hip and left arm ache from bruises, some caused when she was pushed into the car’s stick shift. She said the injuries have made it difficult for her to take care of the couple’s youngest son, Matthew, 1.
Leroy Woods said he had promised Joshua his first bicycle for Christmas and that the boy was thrilled when he spotted the bike at a store two weeks before he died.
“I’m going to get it anyway,” Leroy Woods said. “It’ll go in his room. He wanted it and I made a promise to him. I said Santa would bring it.”
The family copes with Joshua’s death by becoming more involved in their church, Leroy Woods said. Joey and Jacob play with other children there, he said.
A memorial to Joshua decorated with flowers and an electric reindeer sits in the front yard, and the family also decorated a tree near his grave and plans to visit the gravesite on Christmas Day, Leroy Woods said.
Lisa Woods said the time the boys spent at the hospital on the night of the accident has made it easier for them to grasp what happened to their brother.
“They actually saw what death was. Now they understand he’s not coming home,” she said.
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