jonnydwolf
Well-Known Member
A Portland jury today awarded more than $70 million to a pilot who was injured and to the family of a pilot who was killed in a 2008 helicopter crash.
Immediately after jurors left the courtroom, the family of the surviving pilot and the widow of the dead pilot broke into tears. The verdict, their attorney said, served as vindication because jurors unanimously said the crash wasn't the pilots' fault.
Lawyers had offered opposing reasons during the seven-week long trial for why a helicopter crashed on August 5, 2008 on a California mountainside, killing nine firefighters, including eight from Oregon: It was either a well-known engine flaw or an overloaded craft.
The theories came in closing arguments on March 14 in a lawsuit against General Electric, maker of the helicopter's engines. It was filed by surviving pilot William Coultas, his wife and the estate of another pilot who died, Roark Schwanenberg. The plaintiffs had sought as much as $177 million.
GE knew for at least six years there were problems with a fuel control valve in the commercial engines the company built for Sikorsky S-61 helicopters, said the plaintiffs' attorney Greg Anderson. The valve failed in the Sikorsky that was carrying the firefighters, shutting power to one of its two engines, he said.
But GE attorney Kevin Smith said the crash was caused because the helicopter was more than 1,400 pounds overweight at takeoff, and that the pilots were relying on inadequate weight data and inadequate power data of the helicopter's lift capacity provided to them by Grants Pass-based Carson Helicopters, which owned and operated a firefighting helicopter.
The National Transportation Safety Board concluded that the helicopter weighed 19,008 pounds at takeoff, which was actually 3,168 pounds heavier than recommended for safe flight.
Under federal law, NTSB probable cause determinations are not allowed as evidence in trials. According to AVweb, private "litigants must prove the cause of the crash to a jury without the benefit of the conclusions of the NTSB accident investigations."
Witnesses for the defense found that the helicopter was at full power when it hit the first tree and remained at full power when it hit a second tree based on sound spectrum analysis from cockpit recorders.
Jurors deliberated for six days. They found GE 57 percent at fault -- and attorneys will argue in the next 10 days whether that means GE must pay all $70.455 million that the jurors awarded, or whether GE must pay only 57 percent, which amounts to about $40 million.
Jury awards helicopter pilots more than $70 million in judgement against General Electric After 7 weeks of testimony and six full days of deliberation, a Multnomah County jury found for the family of a pilot who perished in a firefighting helicopter crash that killed nine men, and for the surviving pilot and his family. It was one of the deadliest firefighting accidents in U.S. history. Watch video
Jurors found Carson Helicopters 23 percent at fault, but the company won't be liable for paying its share of the verdict because a judge dismissed them from the case. The jury also found Sikorsky 20 percent at fault, but the company settled with the plaintiffs for an undisclosed amount shortly after trial started. That means Sikorsky isn't responsible for paying any of the verdict, said Anderson, the plaintiffs' attorney.
Although jurors heard extraordinary detail about helicopter mechanics, weight limits and fuel quality, they also heard about the human side of the disaster.
Firefighter Jonathan Frohreich, who was 18 at the time of the crash, was one of four survivors. Frohreich told jurors that he and others had been battling the fire for days and sleeping in tents along a ridge on the 5,945-foot mountain in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest. On Aug. 5, the forecast was for lightning, and so a decision was made to evacuate the firefighters by helicopter, or "flying bus" as it was known, from a helipad on the mountain.
Twice, the helicopter landed and took off -- ferrying firefighters with no problem. Frohreich boarded the helicopter on its third trip. Because he was one of the last to get on, he sat in the back, in what would turn out to be one of the safest seats because it was the last part of the cabin to catch fire.
Frohreich felt the helicopter dip once, then take a second, hard dip. He remembers seeing trees out the window, and everyone ducking their heads between their legs as the helicopter tumbled down the mountainside.
"The next thing I remember is pretty much being on fire," he said. "I remember hearing people screaming, seeing nothing but flames. ...I remember one (person) screaming about his broken leg. Mainly just screams of agony."
The craft crashed about 150 yards from the helipad.
Frohreich struggled to wrestle himself free of his seat belt. He punched a window three times before it popped out, and he crawled toward safety through flames. He ran 20 feet before collapsing with a broken back and burns to his face, ears and shins. Fourteen months later, he had recovered enough to return to work on full duty.
Frohreich said he believes the craft went down because of an engine problem. He said he noticed a "stressed sound" to the engine and a "winding down."
Christine Schwanenberg, the widow of pilot Roark Schwanenberg, who was 54, told jurors that flying helicopters was a big part of their family life. She said she and their children woke up at 3:30 a.m. to make sandwiches, pile in the car, drop their dad off and then watch him take off. She said they'd drive up to the mountain to get better views of him on the job.
"The twins learned their alphabet I think with a stick in the dirt," she said.
Schwanenberg said she and her husband celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary, "but I'd always add a year to it because I always told him I gave my heart to him the night I met him."
More than 3 1/2 years after the crash, she described her struggles with grief. She said she prefers to stay home to avoid awkward encounters.
"I find myself skirting around aisles in Safeway, just so I'm not approached," Schwanenberg said. "(They are) loving, kind people, but they don't understand."
The crash, known as the Iron 44 incident, is considered the deadliest air tragedy of working firefighters in U.S. history.
Killed were Schwanenberg, 54, of Lostine; 63-year-old Jim Ramage, a forest service employee from Redding, Calif.; Shawn Blazer, 30, of Medford; Scott Charlson, 25, of Phoenix, Ore.; Matthew Hammer, 23, of Grants Pass; Edrik Gomez, 19, of Ashland; Bryan Rich, 29, of Medford; David Steele, 19, of Ashland; and Steven "Caleb" Renno, 21, of Cave Junction.
Injured were Coultas of Cave Junction; Frohreich of Klamath Falls; Richard Schroeder Jr., of Medford; and Michael Brown of Rogue River.
The families of eight men who were killed and three who were injured reached out-of-court settlements with three of five defendants in multiple lawsuits filed after the crash, including Carson Helicopters and Sikorsky. In December 2010, the NTSB said the crash was the result of a cascade of failures by virtually everyone involved in assuring a safe flight.
The problem, the NTSB inquiry found, "was compounded by pilots who failed to account for the helicopter operating at the limit of its performance."
Does this mean a directive was never made to remedy to problem with the GE engines or the operator did not comply?
http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-n...f/2012/03/jury_in_firefighter_helicopter.html
