Dyer v. United States

832 F.2d 1062 Gladys DYER, Personal Representative of the Estate of Jon Keith Dyer, Deceased; Central National Insurance Company of Omaha, Nebraska, a foreign corporation, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. UNITED STATES of America, Defendant-Appellee. No. 85-4369. United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. Argued and Submitted Jan. 8, 1987. Decided Oct. 7, 1987. As Amended Nov. 25, 1987. Jonathan M. Hoffman, Portland, Or., and Nelson L. Walker, Oregon City, Or., for plaintiffs-appellants. Richard R. Stone, Sr., Washington, D.C., for defendant-appellee. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Oregon. Before GOODWIN and THOMPSON, Circuit Judges, and CURTIS, * District Judge. GOODWIN, Circuit Judge: 1 Appellants sued under the Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U.S.C. Secs. 1346 (b), 2671-2680 (1982), for a death resulting when the small airplane in which the decedent was a passenger crashed while landing shortly after a large Coast Guard helicopter landed on the same runway. In a nonjury trial, the district court found that the crash was the result of wake turbulence from the helicopter's landing minutes before, and that the cause of the accident was the negligence of…