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The suits state that DynCorp's Fort Worth-based aviation-services division was in charge of maintenance of the Army's H-60 Black Hawk helicopter, which crashed Nov. 8, 2007, while on an off-duty flight near the air base at Aviano, Italy.
Law firms in Michigan, New York, California and San Antonio are representing the survivors of five of the six victims, as well as the five military members injured in the accident.
The crash, New York lawyer Hunter Shkolnick said, occurred as the helicopter was returning to the base after a sightseeing flight over the Italian Alps that was a reward for the work of the passengers and re-enlistments.
Two members of the Army flight crew and four Air Force passengers were killed in the crash, according to an Air Force report.
The lawsuits, filed three weeks apart in U.S. district court, allege that DynCorp employees improperly removed, serviced and reinstalled critical flight-control components of the helicopter early in 2007. The defective work was not caught and remedied, the suits allege, even though flight crews had previously complained of "clicking and/or popping sounds" when they routinely operated the aircraft controls.
As the aircraft hovered near the ground, Shkolnick said, the yaw controls -- which allow the pilot to control the aircraft's tendency to rotate left or right -- failed, and the helicopter went into an uncontrolled spin before crashing.
"There was a [component] failure that was developing," Shkolnick said. "For whatever reason, they [DynCorp personnel] did not replace the part" despite prior complaints.
Shkolnick said the plaintiffs' attorneys "have been in discussions and coordination with one another."
DynCorp spokesman Douglas Ebner declined to comment on the lawsuits but said the company "is very sympathetic to the families of the individuals who died in the crash."
"We're proud of our record in aviation servicing," Ebner said. "We take our work very seriously.
"We're not going to try this case in the media. We regret the plaintiffs are trying to try the case in the media by putting out press releases with unsubstantiated claims misrepresented as facts."
DynCorp has about 800 full- and part-time employees at facilities at Alliance Airport. The company's operations that provide maintenance service for military and other government agency aircraft are based there, as well as other divisions including the branch that recruits police trainers who work in foreign nations, including Afghanistan.
Ebner said DynCorp would be represented by the Fort Worth law firm Brown, Dean, Wiseman, Proctor, Hart & Howell.
BOB COX, 817-390-7723
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