Tower insurer sues family of teen pilot
The company wants to recoup its payment after the boy crashed into Bank of America downtown in 2002.
By JUSTIN GEORGE
Published December 31, 2005
TAMPA - The insurance company representing the skyscraper that a teenage pilot flew into during a 2002 suicide mission has sued the boy's family.
Travelers Indemnity Co., which represents the owner of the 42-story downtown Bank of America building, wants to recover more than $15,000 in damages from the estate of Charles Bishop, his mother, Julia, and grandmother Karen Johnson. The lawsuit, filed in Hillsborough County Circuit Court on Thursday, claims Julia Bishop did not properly supervise her son.
Less than four months after 9/11, Charles Bishop, 15, flew a small airplane into the side of the high-rise, 100 E Kennedy Blvd., killing himself in a crash that drew national attention. In a suicide note, Bishop claimed to have been recruited by al-Qaida. No such link existed, and Julia Bishop has maintained that acne medicine caused her son to become "severely psychotic."
She filed a $70-million lawsuit against the maker of Accutane, saying nothing else explained her son's flight. That case is pending in federal court, according to records.
In the latest suit, the building's insurer said it wants to recover what it paid Texas PGI Inc., the building's owner, for damage sustained to the office tower and for loss of business while the building was repaired. The four-seat Cessna 172's fuselage poked through the 28th floor.
Julia Bishop "had a duty to exercise reasonable control over the conduct of her minor child," the lawsuit says, "but failed to exercise such reasonable control in order to prevent him from negligently or intentionally harming others or himself."
The lawsuit didn't specify how much was being sought, and attorneys for the insurance company and the defendants, as well as Bishop and Johnson, could not be reached Friday.
Times researchers Cathy Wos and Angie Drobnic Holan contributed to this report. Justin George can be reached at 813 226-3368 or jgeorge@sptimes.com