Claims That The Pilot 'Bent The Controls' Trying To Fly The Plane

The lawyer representing the family of New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle, who along with his instructor was fatally injured when the Cirrus SR20 he had recently purchased and was flying impacted the side of a building on Manhattan's Upper East Side, told a jury in opening statements Wednesday that the plane's controls were "jammed" due to a design defect in the aircraft.

Cirrus SR20 File Photo

Attorney Todd Macaluso said in his opening argument that "There is no pilot error,"which was the finding of the NTSB in its probable cause report. "If you can't control the airplane, you can't be at fault. This airplane was out of control," he asserted.

Lidle and his instructor Tylor Stanger were flying in the Hudson river corridor, and Cirrus contends Lidle started a turn too late, which gave himself no opportunity to complete the maneuver. A story in the New York Post reports that Macaluso said that the SR20 was "spinning out of control" when it impacted the building, and that "the plane lost control even before it made the turn." He said Lidle bent the airplane's side stick in an effort to bring the aircraft back under control. He also said the SR20s airframe parachute would have had malfunctioned given the unusual attitude of the aircraft, and that at 1,000ft AGL, it would have made little difference. If the airplane had been functioning properly, he said, "with an instructor on board, they could have easily navigated this."

Bloomberg News reports that Cirrus' attorneys said the company is "genuinely sorry" that the two men lost their lives in the accident, but maintain that "Cirrus did not cause these deaths, and the airplane did not cause these deaths."

Lidle's widow is seeking $50 million from Cirrus.

(Editors' Note) The NY Post also reports that Mancuso said that the jammed controls were due to a "design flaw after the 'jet' was rushed into production." If true, we'll see how far that body of aviation knowledge takes him in this case.

FMI: www.nysd.uscourts.gov