Marlin Air, a local charter airline company, is suing the University for terminating its contract with the company after four members of the University's Survival Flight organ transplant team and two Marlin Air pilots were killed when a charter jet crashed into Lake Michigan on June 4.

The Belleville-based company was contracted to transport the University's Survival Flight organ transplant team. When the plane crashed, the team was traveling from Milwaukee, Wis. to Ann Arbor to deliver a pair of lungs for a 50-year-old man being treated at the University Hospital.

Shortly after taking off from Milwaukee's General Mitchell International Airport, the pilot requested to return to the airport due to an unknown emergency. Soon after, the plane disappeared from radar and crashed into Lake Michigan.

According to court documents in the lawsuit, the University terminated its contract with Marlin Air in July, a month after the accident. The contract wasn't set to expire until Sept. 2009.

Scott Erskine, a Rochester-based attorney, filed the suit Dec. 4 on behalf of Marlin Air with a Michigan Court of Claims judge in Lansing.

The airline company is seeking more than $1 million in compensation from the University for the remaining two years of the contract, according to court documents.

The company is also seeking an unspecified amount of damages, claiming the University's actions caused "irreparable damage" to Marlin Air's business.

Erskine said there was no legal basis for University to prematurely terminate its contract with Marlin Air. Investigations by the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board have found no wrongdoing on the part of Marlin Air in the crash.

The University released a statement in response to the lawsuit on Monday, saying the University severed the contract in order to "provide the best care possible to our patients and their families."

"The University of Michigan Health System had to obtain service from other fixed wing providers," the statement said. "Marlin Air did not have the ability to provide the services required by our institution."

Scott Feringa, a Southfield-based attorney providing legal counsel to the University, said in a letter filed along with court documents that the terms of the University's contract with the company gave it the right to terminate the contract after the crash. According to the contract, the University was entitled to terminate the contract if Marlin Air harmed the business reputation of the University, excluded employees from a federal health care program, misrepresented itself in the contract or endangered a person's health or safety.

"Clearly, the tragic circumstances that resulted in the crash of N550BP and the loss of the lives of the crew and the passengers on June 4, 2007, falls within the category," the letter said."