The widow and two children of Buffalo developer Mark Croce have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the maker of his helicopter.
Robinson Helicopter Company of Torrance, CA is the maker of the Robinson R66 aircraft Croce was flying when it crashed in January, killing him and passenger and Orchard Park businessman Michael Capriotto.
The Los Angeles-based law firm Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman, which has filed previous litigation against the helicopter company, is representing the Croce family. The lawsuit claims negligence and design defects led to the crash over central Pennsylvania.
“This is in large measure due to the design of the rotor hub and main rotor blade assembly, the ability of the RHC blades to independently pivot and teeter, combined with the inadequate mass of the main rotor blades, and resulting low rotor inertia, and a tendency to delaminate, among other things,” the complaint states.
The lawsuit says Croce was a well-qualified pilot, with proper licenses and certifications. It faults the troubling mechanical history of the R66 helicopter and the company for not addressing the problem.
“It isn’t simply that their helicopters crash more than other manufacturers; the circumstances surrounding the crashes often share similarities, including mechanical failure in the same parts of the aircraft, " said attorney Ronald Goldman. "They have had every opportunity to study the issues and make necessary design changes to protect their consumers, but they don’t."
A financial amount in the suit was not disclosed, although one attorney expects it to be in the millions of dollars.
