Aviation Crash Litigation

LAST FLIGHT: An Army OH-58 on a drug mission on the Arizona - Mexican border minutes before a mechanical problem caused it to crash.

Our law firm has been involved in over one hundred aviation accident cases involving general aviation aircraft, civilian and military helicopters, and passenger aircraft, including accidents in the United States, Mexico, South America, and China. It is difficult to imagine a worse tragedy than an aviation crash striking a family. Through the trauma of trying to care for your loved ones, avoid the intrusion of journalists and representatives of the various manufacturers, insurers, and operators, and simply know what has happened, widows and children often realize that no one will tell them what really happened. To make this worse, under the investigation rules of the National Transportation Safety Board the NTSB investigators usually invite into the investigation the parties whose functions and products were involved, i.e., the aircraft, engine, and propellor manufacturers, overhaul facilities, and renters, but specifically do not include "claimants and insurers." This means that while the NTSB and the people likely to get sued are looking at the wreckage, the engine, the site, etc., the families who have lost the most are excluded. The longer they wait, the more difficult it is to locate and preserve the evidence and witnesses who can reconstruct for them what really happened. Click here to read the April, 2000 Court order in Jenkins v Bell Helicopter (the crash of the OH-58) in which the Court finds that Bell knew or should have known that expert witness Fredric Wilken knowingly gave false testimony on critical issues, resulting in an unfair trial." (320K) Click here to read the second order, which contains the award of $583,000 and expenses. (123K) You'll need the free Adobe Acrobat Reader plug-in to read the PDF announcement.