McGee

Helen M. McGee sought damages from John Hedger and Cessna Aircraft Company for personal injuries she sustained in the crash of a 1968 model 177 Cardinal Cessna aircraft. The aircraft was manufactured by Cessna and owned by Hedger. McGee settled her claim, dismissed her complaint, as to defendant Hedger before commencement of the trial. As to the remaining defendant Cessna, McGee asserted two theories of liability. First, McGee charged negligence in the design of the aircraft and second design defects of the aircraft renders Cessna strictly liable for injuries caused proximately thereby. More specifically, McGee asserted the fuel system of the aircraft was inherently unsafe; Cessna designed, installed near the cockpit an “accumulator” of gasoline intercepting its flow from the storage tanks in the wings to the carburetor and the engine in the nose of the plane.

McGee complains that Cessna knew the nosewheel strut was susceptible to deformation either in a crash or due to rough handling; the nosewheel strut collapsed, telescoped, upon impact and ruptured the accumulator tank, permitting fuel to escape in an area where combustion would and did in fact occur, thus causing…