Stewart's Family Files Suit
A year to the day after Payne Stewart died in a bizarre airplane crash in South Dakota, the golfer's family filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the craft's owner and operator.
The lawsuit filed in Orange County Circuit Court by Tracey Stewart and her children seeks an unspecified amount of damages.
It accuses Sunjet Aviation Inc., and Jet Shares One Inc., of negligence. Lawsuits also were filed by the families of three others who died in the crash: Stewart's agents, Van Ardan and Robert Fraley, and golf-course designer Bruce Borland.
The Learjet's cabin-pressure system wasn't properly inspected, maintained or repaired, according to the lawsuit. In addition, the oxygen-supply system and a valve in the engine weren't properly maintained and the plane's crew failed to take proper corrective measures in the emergency, according to the complaint.
"Defendants knew or should have known from the maintenance history of the aircraft that it was unairworthy and unsafe by reason of a dangerously defective cabin-pressure system," the 11-page lawsuit said.
Mark Dumbroff, a Washington-based attorney for Sunjet, said he wouldn't comment until he had seen the lawsuits. Sunjet, the Sanford, Fla.-based company that operated the airplane, was dissolved earlier this year and any damages will be pursued from the company's insurance.
A woman who answered the phone at Jet Shares One Inc.'s registered agent, Delaware Registry Ltd. in Wilmington, Del., said she couldn't give out information on the company.
Maintenance logs released by the National Transportation Safety Board last month showed that the Learjet had previous problems with its cabin-pressure system. The logs also showed that a valve had to be replaced following in-flight loss of cabin pressure much earlier, on June 28, 1986.
The plane Stewart was on departed Orlando on Oct. 25, for Dallas. Radio contact was lost with the plane as it passed north of Gainesville. The flight continued on autopilot until it ran out of gas and crashed near Aberdeen, S.D.
There has been speculation that the cabin-pressure system failed, causing the crew and passengers to pass out from loss of oxygen. The crash destroyed or damaged several parts of the oxygen and pressure systems. Some remain missing and the crash continues to be investigated.
The families hope the lawsuit sheds light on what happened during the flight because the results of the FBI investigation likely won't be made available to them, according to Gerard Lear, the families' Washington-based attorney.
"What we're interested in primarily is obtaining a full history of the specific aircraft as well as any history of previous pressurization problems for that Learjet," Lear said.
PGA players at the National Car Rental Classic at Disney World outside Orlando said Wednesday that the anniversary of Stewart's death was a painful reminder of what the tour had lost.
"Comletely healed? I don't know. I don't know if you ever really do," Tiger Woods said. "Payne was such a fixture out there and a part of all our lives, and we accept the fact that he has gone to a better place. But the hard part is that he is missing in our lives."
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