Delta Disputes Judge’s Standards for Pilots in Fuel-Dumping Case

Delta Air Lines Inc. said that a US district court created a new federal standard of care for in-flight emergencies when assessing claims by Los Angeles residents over a jet-fuel-dumping incident.

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit should adopt Delta’s standard —that a pilot must believe their actions were necessary to respond to an emergency in the interest of safety—in order to substantially narrow the litigation, Delta said in a motion for interlocutory appeal Tuesday.

The case stems from a January 2020 incident in which a plane en routeto Shanghai experienced an engine failure shortly after it ...