McLaughlin

Plaintiffs Donald R. McLaughlin and David Claude Hieter appeal a judgment after a jury returned a special verdict in favor of Sikorsky Aircraft in this products liability case for personal injury damages. The case was tried exclusively on a theory of strict liability due to alleged defective design. First and primarily, plaintiffs alleged defective design of the flight control system because the 1963 Sikorsky-made HH-3A combat and rescue helicopter which crashed in 1976 did not have redundant self-locking fasteners in the flight control linkage system. Second, as to Hieter alone, a design defect was alleged in that the copilot’s seat of the helicopter was not crashworthy because it could not withstand sufficient G-forces in a crash. With Navy personnel McLaughlin in the rear of the helicopter and Hieter in the copilot’s seat, the flight control linkage which controls the fore and aft pitch axis of the helicopter disconnected during flight. The linkage connections by design were a bolt, castellated nut and cotter pin which is a safe, serviceable and reliable linkage system with the three components in place. However, Navy maintenance personnel had not replaced the cotter…