The repercussions of last year’s collapse of the hangar complex at the Dulles Jet Center continue to roil and will for years to come, according to industry sources. On Feb. 6, 2010, the weight of accumulated snow caused the roofs of three of the four hangars to collapse, damaging or trapping 19 business aircraft. Insurance agents quickly descended on the scene to assess the situation. After examination by the underwriters and manufacturer representatives, many of the cases were listed as “constructive total losses,” meaning either the aircraft was damaged so badly that an actual total loss was inevitable or that the cost of recovering and repairing the aircraft was greater than approximately 70 to 75 percent of its insured value. “They were not totally damaged, but when [insurers] looked at what it would take to reconstruct the aircraft they knew it was really more worth the time and effort to go ahead and pay for the total loss,” said Patrick Brafford, managing director of Marsh Aviation. Under those circumstances, the insurance company paid the customer the agreed value and claimed the aircraft title for salvage.
According to Scott Anglin, head of Anglin Aircraft Recovery Service, who was tasked with protecting the aircraft from further damage while the hangars were dismantled around them, there were 15 aircraft involved (see box), not including the four Gulfstreams that were trapped for several weeks in Hangar D, which though damaged did not suffer a collapse.
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