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Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!lanl-a!ths
From: ths@lanl-a.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.aviation
Subject: Product Liability
Message-ID: <15117@lanl-a.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 22-Oct-84 18:56:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: lanl-a.15117
Posted: Mon Oct 22 18:56:45 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 24-Oct-84 07:05:42 EDT
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Lines: 34


>The aviation industry has more than the FAA to worry about. Read the
>article on lawsuits in this months FLYING.

Unfortunately the aviation industry has never worried much about the FAA.
They have an interesting "relationship" that occasionally borders on
the "unethical" if not worse.

The insurance industry over the past 20 years has had more to influence
on the aviation industry than the FAA. What we are finally seeing is the
effect of poor design and quality control, coupled with "almost"
criminal behavior on the part of the "big three" in attempting to cover-up
their product inadequacies.

The FLYING article only touches the tip of the iceberg. Unfortunately,
FLYINGs close association with the industry prevents them from being totally
objective in reporting the reasons behind the reasons for tremendous
increases in product liability over the past few years.  Although greedy
lawyers have had some effect on the situation, it is the lack of
responsiveness on the part of the manufacturers that have brought the
situation to its present position.  A perfect example of the absurd
situation is the famous C-172 "seat sliding problem".  They knew about it
for years, never acknowledged it, put "band-aid" fixes on it, and finally
got their socks sued off.

Does anyone know if it would be possible for Cessna (for example) to sell
the low end product line (C-152, C-172 etc) to another company without the
new company being responsible for past product liability? If that were
possible then the price of the aircraft would drop considerably (about 20%).

Although I am not an "expert" on the situation, from my view point
(educated opinions are allowed?) Mooney is the only current manufacturer
that has made reasonable efforts to resolve potentially serious problems
with their aircraft.