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Opinion of the Court
the airline's liability for passenger injuries occurring "on board the aircraft or in the course of any of the operations of embarking or disembarking." Art. 17, 49 Stat. 3018; see Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 16. "[T]he Convention's preemptive effect on local law extends no further than the Convention's own substantive scope." Ibid. A carrier, therefore, "is indisputably subject to liability under local law for injuries arising outside of that scope: e. g., for passenger injuries occurring before 'any of the operations of embarking' " or disembarking. Ibid. (quoting Article 17).
Tseng raises a different concern. She argues that air carriers will escape liability for their intentional torts if passengers are not permitted to pursue personal injury claims outside of the terms of the Convention. See Brief for Respondent 15-16. But we have already cautioned that the definition of "accident" under Article 17 is an "unusual event . . . external to the passenger," and that "[t]his definition should be flexibly applied." Saks, 470 U. S., at 405 (emphasis added). In Saks, the Court concluded that no "accident" occurred because the injury there—a hearing loss—"indisputably result[ed] from the passenger's own internal reaction to the usual, normal, and expected operation of the aircraft." Id., at 406 (emphasis added). As we earlier noted, see supra, at 165-166, n. 9, Tseng and El Al chose not to pursue in this Court the question whether an "accident" occurred, for an affirmative answer would still leave Tseng unable to recover under the treaty; she sustained no "bodily injury" and could not gain compensation under Article 17 for her solely psychic or psychosomatic injuries.
B
The drafting history of Article 17 is consistent with our understanding of the preemptive effect of the Convention. The preliminary draft of the Convention submitted to the conference at Warsaw made air carriers liable "in the case of death, wounding, or any other bodily injury suffered by a
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