EVERETT — A lawsuit filed on behalf of the families of nine Snohomish-based skydivers who died with their pilot in an October 2007 crash is moving to Snohomish County Superior Court.
Lawyers say they are planning to drop the federal lawsuit against the Cessna Aircraft Co. and the Goodrich Corp., the maker of the de-icing system on the Model 208B Grand Caravan.
Instead, the attorneys have filed a lawsuit against the companies in Snohomish County. They also have named two other defendants, Kaposwin Air Sports Ltd., which owned the plane, and the estate of the plane’s pilot, Philip Kibler, who died in the crash.
To add those two defendants, the case had to be moved out of federal court, said Bellingham-based attorney Dean Brett, who filed the wrongful death lawsuit on behalf of the families.
Kibler, 46, and the skydivers were returning from a weekend skydiving event in Idaho, and were on the way to Shelton when the crash occurred. Several of the skydivers were from Snohomish County and regularly jumped at Skydive Snohomish, located at Harvey Field.
The lawsuit alleges that equipment designed to keep the Cessna’s wings free of ice in freezing and wet flying conditions failed, causing the plane to crash. The lawsuit also claims the plane didn’t have an adequate system to warn pilots of an impending stall in foreseeable flight conditions.
Kibler failed to take into account the accident history of the Cessna and its defects in known icing conditions, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit also alleges that Kibler was negligent in his planning and following flight procedures and Kaposwin should have known that Kibler was negligent.
The National Transportation Safety Board determined that the probable cause of the crash was Kibler’s failure to maintain adequate speed, causing the plane to stall in mid-air. Kibler likely was impaired from hypoxia, lack of oxygen, according to the report.
Kibler spent more than an hour flying at between 12,400 feet and 15,000 feet on the trip, according to the report. Kibler was not using supplemental oxygen. He likely wouldn’t have had any symptoms and been unaware of his impairment, according to the report.
The report also alleges that Kibler didn’t conduct an adequate pre-flight weather evaluation and tried to fly in adverse weather conditions, including clouds and turbulence.
Killed in the crash with Kibler were: Cecil Elsner, 20, of Lake Stevens; Landon Atkin, 20, of Snohomish; Andrew Smith, 20 of Lake Stevens; Jeff Ross, 28 of Snohomish; Bryan Jones, 34, of Redmond; Hollie Rasberry, 24, of Bellingham; Michelle Barker, 22, of Kirkland; Casey Craig, 30, of Bothell; and Ralph Abdo, 27, of Issaquah.
Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463; hefley@heraldnet.com.
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