Family of San Bruno Man Who Drowned at SFO Files Lawsuit

The family of a man who drowned at San Francisco International Airport is filing a lawsuit against the City of South San Francisco and a parking lot company for not preventing or protecting public safety.

Jean Arbelbide, 63, was spraying weed killer in an SFO parking lot last March when he fell through rotten plywood, and into a water-filled pit, reported the San Jose Mercury News Thursday.

His family discovered his body in a nine-foot deep pit a couple of days after he went to work. According to their attorney, the self-employed San Bruno gardener fell into a part of infrastructure leftover from when the area was used as a ship dock.

Now Arbelbide's family claims that the people who run the parking lot didn’t warn or protect the public. Yet South San Francisco’s city attorney says that the death was a terrible accident, but that the city isn’t responsible.

Arbelbide lived in San Mateo County for 43 years, according to an obituary published in the San Mateo Daily Journal last April. Originally from France, he was a member of the Basque Cultural Center in South San Francisco.