Thu, Apr 28, 2011
Claims That The Pilot 'Bent The Controls' Trying To Fly The
Plane
The lawyer representing the family of New York Yankees pitcher
Cory Lidle, who along with his instructor was fatally injured when
the Cirrus SR20 he had recently purchased and was flying impacted
the side of a building on Manhattan's Upper East Side, told a jury
in opening statements Wednesday that the plane's controls were
"jammed" due to a design defect in the aircraft.
Cirrus SR20 File Photo
Attorney Todd Macaluso said in his opening argument that "There
is no pilot error,"which was the finding of the NTSB in
its probable cause report. "If you can't control the
airplane, you can't be at fault. This airplane was out of control,"
he asserted.
Lidle and his instructor Tylor Stanger were flying in the Hudson
river corridor, and Cirrus contends Lidle started a turn too late,
which gave himself no opportunity to complete the maneuver. A story
in the New York Post reports that Macaluso said that the SR20 was
"spinning out of control" when it impacted the building, and that
"the plane lost control even before it made the turn." He said
Lidle bent the airplane's side stick in an effort to bring the
aircraft back under control. He also said the SR20s airframe
parachute would have had malfunctioned given the unusual attitude
of the aircraft, and that at 1,000ft AGL, it would have made little
difference. If the airplane had been functioning properly, he said,
"with an instructor on board, they could have easily navigated
this."
Bloomberg News reports that Cirrus' attorneys said the company
is "genuinely sorry" that the two men lost their lives in the
accident, but maintain that "Cirrus did not cause these deaths, and
the airplane did not cause these deaths."
Lidle's widow is seeking $50 million from Cirrus.
(Editors' Note) The NY Post also reports that Mancuso
said that the jammed controls were due to a "design flaw after the
'jet' was rushed into production." If true, we'll see how far that
body of aviation knowledge takes him in this case.
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