An Oregon family has filed a $35 million lawsuit again Van’s Aircraft after a crash last year that claimed the life of the builder and his 4-year-old granddaughter. The suit alleges that the instructions for the kits and the parts provided by Van’s Aircraft Inc and Floscan Instrument Co. “are inadequate and unsafe,” according to a Reuters story.
The lawsuit also claims that Van’s Aircraft misleads consumers into believing they can follow the company’s specifications to safely construct the aircraft without having proper mechanical experience or training.
The story quotes Scott Risan, Van’s president and general manager, who said “we do a really good job with the safety of the airplanes. It’s up to the builder to use good judgment when they are building and maintaining the airplane. The lawsuit seems to be kind of attacking the industry in general and that’s unfortunate.”
Well if Van’s lawyers are sharp I hope they point out that under the present amateur built regulations the builder is the manufacturer not Van’s. He only supplies the parts to build the plane with. And the builder is free to modify the design as he sees fit. Or build it per the plans, or use part of the plans and make up his own for the rest. No part of an experimental aircraft is FAA certified. Vans should not be liable. The lawyers are unhappy they don’t have a company like Beech, Piper or Cessna to sue. So out of frustration they are trying to go after kit makers, which aren’t even the manufacturers. They are only parts suppliers to builders/manufacturers to build their planes. I spent 25 years building a Glasair 3, and during the building process I realized that the parts the kit maker built were easy to make. Big and small parts they make in molds, and gather the hardware so the builder doesn’t have to scrounge it all up himself. But I felt like the manufacturer during the whole laborious process. It doesn’t make any difference how hard the plane is to construct, the whole idea is for an education for the builder to learn. And sometimes share with others helping with the project. Some kits do not even come with a builders manual. It’s up to the builder to figure that out. They may only have plans but not instructions on how to construct. This suit sounds like they are trying to hold Van’s liable for supplying a builders manual. It should be thrown out of court as a frivolous lawsuit.
All unanimous opinion is suspected, even if the thinkers are honest. Here only saw favorable reviews to keep things as they are certainly passionate opinions of people like me for light aviation. I have nothing against Van’s, and as a pilot for 42 years with various qualifications consider its very good products as far as I know. I am light aviation enthusiast, but a year ago an unscrupulous manufacturer failed to meet a mandatory report, falsely claimed have done so and the result was the death of my son of 19 years in Brazil.
The real enemy that can destroy the light aviation which is wrongly called experimental or amateur construction is not this case against Van’s. This booming industry succumb if not expunge the bad manufacturers that denigrate the image of the sector as a whole.
We can all agree this should never see a day in court.
If our courts can’t see that one of the victims in this accident chose to make an alteration to his aircraft AFTER it was inspected, only his estate is liable.
Society is beyond reversal. Our slip and fall legalistic society and generations of entitlement raised humans spells ultimate collapse.
Just another nail in the almost dead general aviation industry. Mix man and machine and something someday will happen no matter how one strives for perfection. Some people should be locked in a caccoon and not eat, breath or move. One must remember law boils down to who has the best story and has nothing to do with what is right or just. What does the word “experimental” mean to you? I’m sorry for the families loss but people in the US have to realize there are costs involved with life.
Thank God for the “Loy yas”. I’ll sleep so well tonight knowing they’re out there looking out for me.
Really outrageous, both the suit itself and the amount claimed. As for the suit, Vans is a legal and high quality product. The so called Amateur Built Experimental FAA “loophole”, is a well established legal provision of long standing. Quite simply, ITS THE LAW. If the plaintiffs dont like the law, they can try to change it. But the court, if actually following the law, is obligated to dismiss this case. Because Vans products are legal, and no defect was part of the accident. The problem with so many injury lawsuits is that the law is not followed. Instead, the plaintiff attorneys get a jury trial, use emotion to get a judgement. The judges are not following the law either, when they allow these type of suits to proceed.
This is par for the course. I don’t agree that this is the “death knell” of kitbuilding; makers can and have been sued before, some for good reason. I agree that there needs to be serious tort reform, not just for general aviation but for our legal system in general. The extra expense and regulation heaped on just about anything can be at least partially blamed on our sue-happy culture. I don’t see tort reform happening as long as the Democratic Party is in power. Not a partisan statement, just acknowledging that trial lawyers are a huge constituency for them.
It’s a common legal tactic to sue every company associated with an accident no matter whether they had a role or not. Remember JFK Jr? He got disoriented and flew a perfectly functioning airplane into the water. That didn’t stop the survivors from suing every manufacturer involved in that Saratoga…airframe, engine, propeller and avionics.
I agree fully with John and Mike. Changing the legal system as John says would be a great long term fix, but, it would take a long time to accomplish.
Mike suggests that EAA put legal talent into this. Good idea but it needs to be the whole industry airlines included, we must all go into this together. If Vans is allowed to hang then the precedent will indeed be set for us all to hang separately.
Remember that the original manufacturer of the TEAM MiniMax, (Tennessee Engineering and Manufacturing), went bankrupt from the cost of winning a law suit of similar nature.
Umm, I would personally probably not fly on a commercial jet liner that was home built.
I ain’t flying commercial regardless of WHO built it.
I was of course simply meaning the whole aviation industry needs to fight the liability claims. Thanks for pointing out the divisiveness that will be our down fall.
I got nothing against commercial aviation, per se… I just hate being cramped into a cattle car with a bunch of snoring, boring, crying babies… and their children. 🙂
There is a world of difference between an amateur design and a kit built aircraft – that being testing and engineering. Van’s has put years of work into their designs, and the types have thousands of hours of flying time. This means, as long as the builder follows the instructions and uses proven best practices, then the aircraft is airworthy.
Your implied assertion that a commercial aircraft is safer merely because professionals are working on it is shaky at best. Yes, their safety record is better, since their designs have much more testing and flight time behind them, As for the people involved, I will put the average kit builder up against the average airline mechanic any day of the week. People are people, and they all make mistakes.
This sounds awfully like the lady who sued McDonalds because she spilled hot coffee on herself.
I sure hope the disclaimer for experimental holds up in court. If this suit is successful, EVERY accident involving homebuilts will be a carbon copy of this suit, there will be an established legal precedent. Van is correct – this is a direct attack on the aircraft kit industry.
And since when is a lawyer qualified to state that there has to be a “bypass” around the fuel transducer? He’s a lawyer, not an aeronautical engineer. The intent is to influence a technologically ignorant jury that this is all someone else’s fault and collect a bazillion dollars, and oh, yeah, the lawyer gets 30 to 40% of it because it went to court.
If you want a kitplane, buy it now before everyone is forced out of business. Remember what happened to the much better funded GA manufacturers during the product liability crisis? Piper is now “New Piper” to cut off the tail of liability from aircraft built 75 years ago (and according to the standards of the time). EAA needs to put some serious bucks into legal talent to beat this LONG before it gets much further.
GA is already on life support, most of the manufacturers have moved upmarket because the per airframe liability insurance is much less proportionally on a bizjet than a bugsmasher, This lawsuit could be the death knell of kit makers, and they will be followed by the people who do “plans only” and eventually the ONLY aviation will be airliners and we will all die of boredom.
So will we see a “New Van’s” if this crazy lawsuit actually goes through ???
What ,what coused the crash pilot error ect . or should the FAA be at failt for issuing a airworthy cert on something that is not .And what about the disclamer you sign when buying a kit or even prints.I am sorry for the loss of life. But life is a risk and lawsuits will never take that risk away.just makes everything cost more( know your limits)
Lawsuits like this aren’t about removing risk. Lawsuits like this are about lawyers collecting large sums of money. Ever heard the term “Ambulance Chaser”?
I built an RV-8 with no prior training than growing up on a farm. My aircraft and more than 9,000 other RVs are safely, regularly demonstrating the principles of aerodynamics.
This despicable lawsuit hits home with all of us who lament the decline of general aviation today and is a cutting example of the urgent need for TORT REFORM in the United States! Please. We need leaders who will take us on a 180 degree trajectory!
As long as there are shysters there will be lawsuits. We need a system as they have in the United Kingdom where the looser pays the court costs. The looser’s council should share in the loss also.
I agree! The builder has signed a pretty comprehensive indemnity but in the US you will always find a shyster that will construct a case! I am surprised people can still drive cars in the States and lawyers have not cottoned on that not drivers but the makers of cars are responsible for the accidents.
The shysters flood the courts with their frivolous cases and block the system for the real ones.
Any one taking on a project like building his own plane knows what he is in for and the reward to be gained. The unfortunate guy that crashed for sure would not go after RV and his family should respect his memory.