More than three years after a Sikorsky CH-148 Cyclone maritime helicopter crashed off the coast of Greece, killing six Canadian servicemen, the families of the victims are suing the helicopter maker.
The families’ lawsuit, filed in US Federal Court in Pennsylvania, alleges that the helicopter’s faulty design caused the crash on April 29, 2020.
It also alleges that the accident occurred when the helicopter’s Electronic Flight Control System (“EFCS”) wrested control of the helicopter from its pilots, causing it to descend into the Ionian Sea at more than 140 miles per hour.
Those killed in the crash include the helicopter’s pilots Captain Brenden Ian MacDonald and Captain Kevin Hagen, Naval Warfare Officer 2nd Lt. Matthew Pyke, Airborne Electronic Sensor Operator Master Corporal Matthew Cousins, Airborne Electronic Sensor Operator, Maritime Systems Engineering Officer 2nd Lt. Abbigail Cowbrough and Air Combat Systems Officer Capt. Maxime Miron-Morin.
According to the claim brief, all six people on board knew they were going to die moments before the accident.
“Each person experienced unimaginable terror and fright in the moments before the helicopter struck the water, causing all on board to sustain fatal injuries,” the claim reads.
The claim says that when the Department of Homeland Defense requested proposals to replace its fleet of CH-124 Sikorsky Sea King helicopters in the 1990s, the EFCS had never before been used on any military helicopter in the world.
The Canadian Armed Forces chose Sikorsky to replace the helicopter, and the document says that Sikorsky offered the EFCS as a way to recoup some of the financial investments of developing it for a different civilian model.
However, the claim says that the Federal Aviation Administration never certified the EFCS for the other helicopter model and that Sikorsky had abandoned the project because they were unable to find buyers for the new design.
“Reflecting a corporate disregard for safety that put profit first, the Sikorsky defendants, faced with missed deadlines and financial penalties, cut corners to expedite the CH-148’s commissioning,” the claim reads.
According to the claim, at the time of the accident, the pilots were performing a maneuver commonly used during rescue or combat, which they believed would allow them to override the autopilot without disengaging it.
However, the lawsuit says Sikorsky analyzed flight data after the crash and found that the system would take over when pilots made “significant pedal and cyclic inputs” while in autopilot mode.
The lawsuit alleges that the EFCS overrode the pilots’ manual attempts to steer the aircraft and, as a result, the helicopter plunged into the sea.
The Air Force director of flight safety at the time, Brig.-Gen. John Alexander, was quoted as saying that the phenomenon “was unknown to the manufacturer, the airworthiness authorities and the aircrew” prior to the accident.
“Sikorsky’s testing of its (flight control system) under the conditions of the incident flight repeatedly and consistently resulted in a fatal accident. At the time of the incident, Sikorsky’s (system) was operating exactly as Sikorsky had designed it,” the document says.
The lawsuit alleges that Sikorsky failed to create a warning system for an emergency event and failed to responsibly design the flight director to automatically shut down in a dangerous situation.
“Prior to the accident, neither the Royal Canadian Air Force nor the incident helicopter pilots were aware of this potentially lethal Sikorsky design flaw,” attorney Stephen Raynes said in the document.
Raynes previously represented plaintiffs in a lawsuit, also against Sikorsky, related to a fatal accident in March 2009 off the coast of Newfoundland, killing 15 of the 16 workers on board heading to an oil rig.
Under Canadian and US law, the Department of Defense, the Armed Forces and the Air Force cannot be named as defendants in a case seeking damages for injuries that occur in the line of duty, the document states.
The helicopter was assembled, upgraded, and tested at the Coatesville manufacturing plant in Pennsylvania. The facility has since closed.
With archives from The Canadian Press.