MOONEY AEROSPACE Bankruptcy delays lawsuit filed by plane crash victim's family
In June 2004, the aerospace group filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
WARREN -- An aerospace group's bankruptcy proceeding is holding up a Trumbull County lawsuit brought by the family of a Warren ear surgeon who was killed in a plane crash.
The lawsuit was filed in March by Milisa K. Rizer, administrator of Dr. Franklin M. Rizer's estate.
A recent docket entry by Judge Andrew Logan in the Trumbull County Common Pleas Court case says the proceeding is stayed by the bankruptcy of one defendant, Mooney Aerospace Group Limited of Kerrville, Texas.
The company in June 2004 filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Late last year, its reorganization plan was approved by a federal bankruptcy court. Mooney Airplane Co. Inc. is a subsidiary company.
Multiple defendants
They are among the defendants in the Rizer suit here.
Others are Honeywell International of Columbus; Honeywell General Aviation Business Corp. of New Jersey; Winner Aviation Corp., which has operations at the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport; Garmin International of Kansas; and four John Does whose names and addresses are not known.
Dr. Rizer was killed March 20, 2003, while on an instrument approach to Leesburg Executive Airport in Leesburg, Va. He was the pilot, and the aircraft experienced "catastrophic failures, including avionics and instrumentation failures," the lawsuit states.
The personal injury and wrongful death action seeks more than $150,000 and a jury trial.
Mooney designed and manufactured the Mooney M20R Ovation; Winner Aviation provided maintenance and repair; Honeywell designed, made and sold avionics systems and flight instrumentation; and Garmin designed, made and sold avionics equipment and instrumentation, including global positioning systems, the legal action continues.
The John Does were involved in instruction, training or servicing of the aircraft.
The estate says each defendant was aware of crashes that had occurred as a result of Honeywell and Garmin instrumentation malfunctions and still failed to correct the problems.