Family of photographer Tim Jones sues over ‘pain and suffering’ from fatal Airlines of Tasmania crash during Sydney to Hobart Yact Race

THE court case surrounding a fatal plane crash during the 2014 Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race will focus on the effect of the passenger’s death on his family.

The plane being salvaged from the seabed off Cape Raoul on the Tasman Peninsula. Picture: SUPPLIED

THE court case surrounding a fatal plane crash during the 2014 Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race will focus on the effect of the passenger’s death on his family.

Hobart photographer Tim Jones, 61, and pilot Sam Langford, 29, were killed when the plane Mr Jones was using for aerial photography crashed off the southern Tasmanian coast.

Mr Jones’s family is suing the plane’s operator Airlines of Tasmania in the Supreme Court in Hobart.

MORE: PHOTOGRAPHER’S FAMILY SUES AIRLINES OF TASMANIA

Hobart-based photographer Tim Jones

Court documents show the family is seeking damages, claiming Mr Jones’s death has caused them nervous shock, pain and suffering, and loss of future earnings.

The court case is expected to proceed later this year.

Just before the crash the plane, a Cessna 172, had conducted a low-level flight over the yacht Mistraal.

It then entered a spin and stalled before nosediving into the sea east of Cape Raoul.

A report by the Australian Transport and Safety Bureau released last year found the aircraft was flying at a height lower than permitted but this “was not likely to have contributed to the accident” in itself.

The report found Airlines of Tasmania consistently conducted low-level photographic operations on yachts below the authorised height.

The company had stopped low-level photography flights, the report said.