From: richieb@bony1.bony.com (Richard Bielak)
Subject: Re: Lawsuits (was: more on business flying)
Organization: mutli-cellular
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 93 14:13:55 GMT

In article <C1F90E.2ID@tss.com> burke@tss.com (Jim Burke) writes:
>In article <1993Jan25.141302.13816@bcrka451.bnr.ca>, crm25@bnr.ca (Fred Black) writes:
>
>|> it seems that the only thing 'wrong' with the airplane was that it stalled when
>|> the pilot allowed its airspeed to drop too low during climbout.  That can happen
>|> to any airplane, hence can hardly be called the manufacturers fault.
>
>
>A recent article (I believe it was in AOPA Pilot) described an ongoing 
>lawsuit involving Piper that seems utterly ridiculous to me.  I may miss
>a detail or two, but here is the general scenario (for those who didn't 
>read it).  A guy wants to do some aerial photography from a Piper 
>Super Cub.  He removed the front seat to mount the camera, and was flying
>from the rear seat.  The model year in question is something like 1972, 
>before the FAA required shoulder restraint belts.  There were hooks for
>installing them if you wanted them, and the owner of the plane had done
>this for the front seat, but not the rear.  Well, the guy is having
>a dispute with the manager of the private strip he is taking off from.
>The manger decides he doesn't want the Cub taking off, so he pulls his
>pickup truck onto the runway.  The pilot figures he can clear the truck
>anyway, so he tries to take off with a truck parked in his path on the
>runway.  He was wrong.  He clipped the truck, and suffered serious injury.
>He is now suing Piper.  The basis for the suit is that Piper was negligent
>in not installing shoulder belts in the plane, even though the plane 
>met the then-current FAA certification requirements.  A jury has determined
>that the manager was not at fault, that the pilot was something like 55%
>at fault, and Piper was something like 45% at fault for the pilot's
>injuries.  Piper's response is
>that it is insane to allow a jury to go back and review FAA certification
>requirements on a case-by-case basis.  Chaos will result.  The case is
>working its way through appeals.

[...]

I read this article (it was in AOPA pilot). Another point of the suit
against Piper is that the design of the Super Cub is faulty because it
has tandem seats. This "defect" reduces pilot's visibility, so he hit
the truck.

You forgot to mention that the SuperCub had two people on board -
there was a camera man in the front seat - and he was towing a glider!!!


....a now for something a little different...


In the February issue of Flying the "Aftermath" column discusses the
crashes of Piper Malibus. In all cases it appears that the pilot lost
control of the airplane, over-stressed it and so the airplane broke up
(one hypothesis is that pipot tube got iced over, airspeed indication
went south, and the autopilot freaked out).

Now in the February/March issue of Smithsonian "Air and Space"
magazine there is a letter from a Malibu pilot, who say that:

        "<name-omitted> and I managed a flight around the world via
the poles in a single-engine aircraft, despite experiencing a major
structural failure of a wing on our Piper Malibu as we neared the
North Pole in mid-winter. The incident could have killed us, but we
survived..."


Then he says that he tried to get Piper to "fix" the defect in the
wing design. Piper refused, so he sued.

Finally he says:

        "At least five Malibus fell out of the sky. Though we can't
identify the cause or causes with certainty, we do know that the
Malibu wing could easily have been made stronger and safer at little
cost."


Go figure...


...richie


-- 
* Richie Bielak   (212)-815-3072   |                                          *
* Internet:       richieb@bony.com | Rule #1: Don't sweat the small stuff.    *
* Bang {uupsi,uunet}!bony1!richieb | Rule #2: It's all small stuff.           *
*    - Strictly my opinions -      |                                          *
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