Family argues helicopter maker is liable in fatal Hawaii crash

A federal appeals court panel questioned whether replacing aircraft parts with identical designs should restart liability protections, in a case testing manufacturer immunity under a 1994 federal law.

by Jeremy Yurow, Court House News, October 8, 2025

HONOLULU (CN) — The Ninth Circuit Wednesday grilled attorneys over whether a decades-old aviation law should shield a helicopter manufacturer from liability when it replaces parts with the same reportedly defective design that caused a fatal crash.

The hearing, held at the University of Hawaii William S. Richardson School of Law, brought the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to the islands for one of its periodic special sittings. The court, which typically hears cases in San Francisco, Pasadena, Seattle and Portland, occasionally convenes in other cities within its nine-state jurisdiction, including Honolulu.

The three-judge panel consisted of Senior U.S. Circuit Judge M. Margaret McKeown, appointed by President Bill Clinton, and U.S. Circuit Judges Michelle Friedland and Jennifer Sung, both appointed by President Barack Obama.

The case concerns the death of Ryan McAuliffe, a 28-year-old Chicago real estate executive killed when a tour helicopter disintegrated in midair over Oahu on April 29, 2019. The pilot and another passenger also died when the aircraft plummeted onto a residential street and burst into flames.

The General Aviation Revitalization Act, a 1994 federal law that generally bars lawsuits against aircraft manufacturers for incidents involving planes or helicopters more than 18 years old. U.S. District Judge Helen Gillmor had dismissed the McAuliffes’ claims against Robinson Helicopter Company under that statute, but the family argues an exception applies because Robinson replaced the main rotor hub and blades just months before the crash.

The judges pressed both sides on a critical question: Does the statute’s “rolling” provision — which restarts the 18-year clock when parts are replaced — apply only when the replacement part differs from the original design, or does any replacement trigger new liability exposure?

“Why isn’t it kind of reasonable to read the structure of the statute as meaning that there needs to have been some change that caused the crash, rather than just the part was the same and it caused the crash?” Friedland asked Thomas Siracusa, the McAuliffes’ lead attorney.

Siracusa argued that requiring design changes would create a troublesome incentive. “If the manufacturer had a defective design but got lucky and it didn’t manifest into an accident in 18 years, then they could keep using this defective design,” he said. “Just keep generating parts that are defective and using them because it so happened it didn’t manifest.”

But McKeown questioned whether that interpretation would render the 18-year limitation meaningless.

“Any time you get a new part, even if it’s the same, you get another extension of the 18-year period,” she said. “Doesn’t it really turn the statute of limitations kind of into being a nugatory thing?”

Tim Goetz, Robinson’s attorney, argued the statute was designed to protect manufacturers from liability for aircraft that have been in service for nearly two decades.

“The statute — GARA would be almost meaningless if you weren’t — if you could use it to show a design defect that dates back to the original manufacturer,” he said.

The judges also scrutinized whether the McAuliffes had enough evidence that the replaced parts — not just the overall rotor system — caused the crash. The National Transportation Safety Board determined the accident occurred after the helicopter encountered severe turbulence and exceeded recommended airspeed, causing a phenomenon known as mast bumping, where the main rotor blade struck the cabin.

Sung pressed the McAuliffes’ attorneys on their evidence.

“Do you have evidence in the summary judgment record sufficient to withstand summary judgment to get you to trial about the design defect specific to the hub or the blades,” she said.

Aimee Lum, who handled the rebuttal for the McAuliffes, pointed to expert reports detailing defects in the coning hinges and blade mass that contributed to the low inertia condition causing mast bumping. She cited pages in the evidentiary record, including diagrams showing “how the hub and blades are to the system — like they are the main pieces of the system.”

The case involves the Robinson R44, a model that a 2018 Los Angeles Times investigation found had the highest number of fatal accidents in the U.S. between 2006 and 2016. Robinson has warned pilots that the R44’s main rotor can flap dangerously during turbulence, a particular risk in Hawaii where weather conditions change rapidly.

The McAuliffe family previously reached a confidential settlement in June with Novictor Aviation, the tour operator that employed the pilot, and with the U.S. government over claims that the Federal Aviation Administration improperly allowed the company’s owner to certify the pilot. The pilot had moved to Hawaii just two weeks before the crash and was on his fourth day of flying tours when the accident occurred.

The three-judge panel did not indicate when it would rule.