I know the week has only begun, but I don’t know if I can find a more-ridiculous suit than this one from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel –
A widow alleges in a lawsuit against a helicopter manufacturer that an aircraft it created, occupied by her husband and daughter in a fatal crash, was defective and unreasonably dangerous.
Cheryl Berg seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages from the California-based Robinson Helicopter Co. in the suit filed recently in U.S. District Court in Milwaukee.
Cheryl Berg’s husband, Thomas, a Mukwonago businessman, and their daughter, Chelsey, died in the June 25, 2003, crash. Thomas Berg’s employee, Michael Siegler of Lake Geneva, was a passenger in the helicopter and also was killed.
The helicopter, a Robinson R44 II, was headed to Kansas City, Mo., where Berg, the helicopter’s pilot, had business. The aircraft took off from Mukwonago and crashed nose first about 90 minutes later in northwestern Illinois.
The National Transportation Safety Board later ruled that pilot error, with amphetamine use as a contributing factor, was the probable cause of the accident. The board also said Thomas Berg should not have been flying with passengers because he had only a student pilot certificate.
The suit alleges the helicopter’s main rotor control system was defective and dangerous. Another part of the helicopter, a main rotor servo actuator, failed, causing a loss of control of the main rotor control, the suit alleges.
The NTSB accident report is here (there are also 3 other incidents involving this type, with the two where investigations are completed not reporting any failure of the rotor control system). The findings from this incident are:
Occurrence #1: LOSS OF CONTROL – IN FLIGHT
Phase of Operation: CRUISE
Findings
1. (C) ROTOR RPM – NOT MAINTAINED – PILOT IN COMMAND
2. (F) USE OF INAPPROPRIATE MEDICATION/DRUG – PILOT IN COMMAND
3. (F) PROCEDURES/DIRECTIVES – NOT FOLLOWED – PILOT IN COMMAND
4. (F) IMPAIRMENT(DRUGS) – PILOT IN COMMAND
———-
Occurrence #2: IN FLIGHT COLLISION WITH TERRAIN/WATER
Phase of Operation: DESCENT – UNCONTROLLED
Findings
5. TERRAIN CONDITION – GROUND
Findings Legend: (C) = Cause, (F) = FactorThe National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable cause(s) of this accident as follows.
The pilot not maintaining main rotor RPM during cruise flight. The factor in the two passenger’s fatal injuries was the pilot not following directives concerning the prohibition of carrying passengers while a student pilot. Other factors were the pilot’s use of inappropriate medication/drugs, and the impairment of the pilot by amphetamine.
Yep; sure looks like a design flaw instead of an inexperienced, drugged-up pilot to me. </sarcasm> More likely, the money is starting to run out, and the widow is grasping at the “no-fee-unless-we-win” straw for more. Where is tort reform when we need it?
That, or she’s in denial about the cause of her husband’s death and is looking for someone to blame the loss of her husband and her daughter on.
I would hope that the amphetamine use was at the “pep pill to offset drowsiness” level and not the “cranked out tweaker” level, since flying with the latter requires the assumption of risk by the passengers. Still not good practice, even if it is one which has been engaged in, with official approval, by combat pilots.
I would hope so too, triticale. In the FAA’s view, that’s still a disqualifying medical condition.