By BRUCE GOLDING
Last Updated: 3:25 AM, February 4, 2013
Posted: 2:35 AM, February 4, 2013
The widow of late Yankee pitcher Cory Lidle is crying foul after being ordered to pay more than $80,000 for losing a suit over the private-plane crash into a Manhattan high-rise that killed her husband.
“It’s an injustice compounded on an injustice,” said lawyer Todd Macaluso, who represents Melanie Lidle.
Lawyers for aircraft maker Cirrus Design Corp. won a judgment for court costs against Melanie and Stephanie Stanger, whose husband, professional pilot Tyler Stanger, also died in the 2006 Upper East Side wreck.
It’s unclear if Cirrus will also seek to recoup its huge legal fees for successfully battling the women’s product-liability claims.
The tragic widows alleged that defects in the design of Cory Lidle’s Cirrus SR20 caused its controls to lock up during a U-turn over the East River.
A Manhattan federal jury took just three hours to clear the company in 2011, and an appeals court unanimously upheld the verdict last month.
Macaluso blamed the outcome on pretrial rulings that kept jurors from learning that Cirrus recalled all its SR20’s and changed the manufacturing process after the deadly incident. Lawyers for Cirrus didn’t return requests for comment.
Story: http://www.nypost.com
NTSB Identification: DCA07MA003.
The docket is stored in the Docket Management System (DMS). Please contact Records Management Division
Accident occurred Wednesday, October 11, 2006 in Manhattan, NYC, NY
Probable Cause Approval Date: 06/27/2007
Aircraft: Cirrus Design Corp. SR-20, registration: N929CD
Injuries: 2 Fatal,1 Serious,2 Minor.
NTSB investigators traveled in support of this investigation and used data obtained from various sources to prepare this aircraft accident report.
[The Safety Board's full brief is available at http://ntsb.gov/Publictn/pubictn.htm. The Aviation Accident Brief number is NTSB/AAB-07/02]
On October 11, 2006, about 1442 eastern daylight time, a Cirrus Design SR20, N929CD, operated as a personal flight, crashed into an apartment building in Manhattan, New York City, while attempting to maneuver above the East River. The two pilots on board the airplane, a certificated private pilot who was the owner of the airplane and a passenger who was a certificated commercial pilot with a flight instructor certificate, were killed. One person on the ground sustained serious injuries, two people on the ground sustained minor injuries, and the airplane was destroyed by impact forces and postcrash fire. The flight was operating under the provisions of 14 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 91, and no flight plan was filed. Marginal visual flight rules (MVFR) conditions prevailed at the time of the accident.
The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable cause(s) of this accident to be:
The pilots' inadequate planning, judgment, and airmanship in the performance of a 180º turn maneuver inside of a limited turning space.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment