AViCON

The Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum Pier 86, W 46th St and 12th Ave New York, NY 10036-4103 Wednesday, April 25, 2012

AViCON 2012 Editorial

In 1998 RTI first produced AViCON, in conjunction with Lloyds of London, to a full house of applauding delegates. Since then the event has been re-scripted numerous times and presented in both London and New York. AViCON was conceived as a challenging and yet fictitious fact-rich animation scenario of a major commercial aircraft casualty to provide for an open exchange of reasoning and strategies practiced to resolve such complex claims, but not normally exchanged among the legal and insurance professions. 

Today AViCON is produced by RTI to engage a wider audience with a distinguished faculty of investigators, lawyers, and insurance underwriters, using topical fact patterns demonstrated with high resolution animated scenarios.

Could anyone imagine a more perfect venue for an AViCON event than on board the historic Intrepid aircraft carrier where the view from the stern is just a short distance from the spot where Sully’s aircraft came to a stop and floated on the Hudson River.  The Intrepid is also home to a retired BA Concorde.

Breaking News items will be run sequentially over the next few weeks, including: new details of the selected conference hotel with special rates for faculty and delegates which allows them to get together and network; preferred conference rates on offer; special interior tours of the Concorde for those who book a conference seat by 23 February. Short clips taken from the animation scenario will be posted from time to time as well. 

A limited number of great sponsorship opportunities are still available to allow participants to be recognized along with some of the most prominent international law firms and consultancies.

AViCON is RTI's bi-annual conference on aviation industry accident investigation, and conflict and claim resolution.  The unique, one-day format centers around a fictional case study and features discussions by legal and insurance experts to explore considerations and complexities of the case from accident investigation to legal discovery, multi-party litigation, and resolution. 

The conference is designed for professionals involved in aviation insurance, including: underwriters, claims managers, lawyers, risk managers, insurance brokers, airline flight safety directors, airline board members with flight safety responsibility, claims investigators, and aircraft product manufacturers.

AViCON case studies are set within an environment that includes many possible choices of forum and law. The 2012 accident scenario will be presented with state-of-the-art animation prepared by RTI's Magic Motion Studios, and will highlight a fresh set of issues of current concern and debate within the aviation market. This event presents a unique opportunity to gain a fuller understanding of the entire range of complexities involved in aviation safety, in a concise and effective format. 

Join the AViCON Group on LinkedIn

Past AViCON conference attendees from various states have been granted Continuing Legal Education credits.  RTI is in the process of preparing CLE credit applications for the 2012 conference. 

Over 100 people registered to attend AViCON 2010, held at One America Square, London, and their comments included:

• "All a very interesting + formative day."
• "Very impressive in terms of content and organisation"
• "BRILLIANT!!!"
• "I completely enjoyed the whole presentation and found it very educational."
• "The format was excellent - very engaging + as a result very easy to absorb + understand. Seeing all sides of the process was particularly interesting, as was the voting analysis."
• "Very good. Excellent networking."

The event was supported by Ince and Co, DLA Piper, Alimonti Law Offices and Podhurst Orseck. The scenario told the fictional story of an airline disaster by means of a unique animation produced by RTI's own animation studio 'Magic Motion Studios in the USA.

The conference was introduced by Mr. Joseph Reynolds and Dr. Simon Mitchell of RTI, followed with technical presentations on airport crisis management, given by Richard Smith from Heathrow Airport, and accident investigation, given by Professor Graham Braithwaite from Cranfield University.

The AViCON Panel of Experts, moderated by Tim Scorer from Ince and Co, then discussed the various merits of each party's case, including the very topical issue of criminalization of accidents. Gillie Belsham also from Ince and Co was among the elite group of panellists which included Ricardo Martinez - Cid ( Podhurst Orseck), Philip Bass ( Clyde and Co), His Honour Harvey Crush (Quadrant Chambers), Rick Alimonti, (Alimonti Law), Art Hankin and Elaine Solomon (Blank Rome) and Jerry Flaxman from QBE.

Joe Reynolds CEO of RTI was "encouraged by the number of delegates" and "the high level of individual participation throughout the day."

Delegates found the day inspiring and thought provoking and gave the panel of experts a round of applause at the end of the event.