Stratford-headquartered Sikorsky Aircraft is being sued by the families of six Canadian Armed Forces members who were killed in an April 2020 crash of a CH-148 Cyclone off the coast of Greece.
According to a CBC News report, Canadian investigators determined that the helicopter hit the Ionian Sea at full speed after the pilot tried to manually override the flight control function but failed to see the aircraft”™s autopilot function was still engaged. Stephen Raynes, the lawyer acting for the victims’ families, said in a media statement that Sikorsky’s computer-regulated flight control system took “control of the helicopter from its pilots, causing it to plunge into the sea at more than 150 miles per hour.”
Raynes added as the helicopter was in descent that “the pilots and the passengers all knew that they were going to die. Each person experienced unimaginable terror and fright in the moments before the helicopter impacted the water, causing everyone aboard to suffer fatal injuries.”
The lawsuit accused Sikorsky of negligence, gross negligence, and reckless disregard of safety, Plaintiffs’ decedents suffered fatal injuries. The Sikorsky Defendants have prioritized their sales and profits over the safety of the passengers and pilots of their CH-148 helicopters.”
The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. A spokesperson for Sikorsky said the company denied the allegations and is “prepared to vigorously defend against them in court.”
