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Aviation Accident Attorney
Product Liability
Aircraft makers and aircraft part manufacturers are responsible for ensuring that the plane or aircraft part it makes is designed properly and defect-free. If someone is harmed due to a defective product or flawed design, the manufacturer is obligated to take responsibility for their product.
Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman, P.C. has litigated numerous product liability aviation accident cases. The example below is just one successful case of ours that altered aviation law and made an improvement on aviation safety at the same time.
The case involved the crash of a Bell Helicopter Trextron, Inc. helicopter in Los Angeles in 1998. The cause of the crash was metal fatigue in the tail rotor yoke that resulted in the failure of the tail rotor in mid flight. An LAFD equipment operator and two Los Angeles firefighters were onboard assisting in the rescue of a girl who had been injured in a car accident. On its way to Children’s Hospital, the helicopter went down in Griffith Park killing the three firefighters and the girl.
The widows of the firefighters contacted our law firm and decided to hire us. Shortly after filing the lawsuits, the helicopter manufacturer’s defense attorneys attempted to have our cases dismissed based on (GARA – The General Aviation Revitalization Act of 1994), a federal law that prohibits plaintiffs from suing aircraft manufacturers for parts over 18 years old. Our cases were dismissed by the trial judge but we appealed. Two years later we won that appeal and began preparing for trial.
In brief, it was decided by the Los Angeles 2nd District Court of Appeal that the law was not applicable to Bell in this case. The judge noted that Bell had withheld information they knew from the Federal Aviation Administration regarding “five military aircraft accidents Bell knew were caused by failure of identical tail rotor yokes,” which was the cause of the accident in Griffith Park.
Our argument was that Bell Textron had an obligation to report all failures of parts, including those of military aircraft. Bell’s alleged failure to do this meant they could not be protected by the General Aviation Revitalization Act of 1994.
The Act removes the manufacturer’s liability when the aircraft has been in service for over 18 years. The Bell helicopter was 22 years old at the time of the crash. However, the Act is void if the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is not notified of this type of information.
The lawyers at Bell argued that the law did not require them to report military aviation accidents.
In our wrongful death lawsuit we argued that if Bell knew about the issues with the tail rotor it should have decreased the aircraft flight time, but the flight time on commercial aircraft was extended from 4,000 to 5,000 hours in 1989. Bell had actually shortened the flight hour limit in 1992 for military helicopters to 2,400 hours.
Since the crash occurred when the helicopter had 4,117 hours of flight time, Mr. Hedlund stated “If they hadn’t lengthened it, all these people would be alive."
It was determined by the National Transportation Safety Board that the cause of the crash was when the tail rotor disconnected from the helicopter in mid-flight "due to a fatigue fracture in the yoke."