Couple To Get $1 Million Crash Settlement

Reprinted From: Beauregard Daily News
By: Jim Leggett

A DeRidder couple, among four passengers who survived a January 1988 airplane crash near Camden, Ark., will share in a more than $1 million legal settlement with the airplane's manufacturer, the maker of the engine and an insurance company.

Allen Bradley, a former state representative from DeRidder got Jerry McKernan, a Baton Rouge attorney, to help in the lawsuit, and the two attorneys announced the settlement Friday in a prepared release.

As an aside, Bradley was in a mobile telephone conversation with a Town Talk reporter concerning the release when he was in a two-vehicle accident on U.S. Highway 190, heavily damaging both vehicles. No one was hurt.

Gene and Carolyn Mayo of DeRidder and Wallace and Linda Cryer of Cold Springs, Texas, were aboard the Cessna Cardinal 177RG en route from Pine Bluff, Ark., to DeRidder when a rigid external oil line broke during flight. The engine oil was pumped overboard.

"While the pilot, Gene Mayo, attempted to reach the Camden Airport, the engine seized, and the airplane crashed just short of the airport property. All occupants of the plane survived but suffered serious back and other injuries,” the attorneys said.

They said a lawsuit was filed claiming the “oil line failure was a result of poor design and that the defendants failed to warn aircraft users of the known dangers of the oil line failure. The claimants referred to other accidents and incidents which arose due to the failure of the same line in other aircraft.”

Sued were Cessna Aircraft, Textron Lycoming and the Home Insurance Co. Cessna and Textron, the engine's manufacturer, denied any responsibility for the accident.

The lawsuit was scheduled to go to trial in Leesville last November, but the parties reached the settlement just days before the trial was to begin.

McKernan said he could not discuss how the settlement monies would be divided among the claimants. He did say, “This settlement stands for the proposition that a manufacturer is responsible to consumers for injuries caused by the unreasonable failure of its products."

Bradley added, "Our clients have been compensated for their losses by the parties responsible for their injuries."

Return to verdicts and settlements.