Survivor Of Grand Canyon Airport Accident Lasts Longer Than Insurance Company

The survivor of an accident involving a Cessna airplane is suing the Textron subsidiary after the insurance company that had agreed to pay him over $6 million from an annuity went out of businesses.

The passenger in the airplane was Eric Yerkes. He was aboard a Cessna aircraft that went down near the Grand Canyon in 1981, according to a report in the New Jersey Courier-Post. According to the NTSB's probable cause report, there were six passengers and a pilot aboard the Cessna T207A. The report indicates that pilot mismanaged the fuel and the plane went down short of the runway at Grand Canyon Airport near Tusayan, AZ.

Herkes was judged to be "severely and permanently disabled" as a result of the accident by a jury, was awarded a cash payment of $125,000, and he agreed to accept payments totalling over $6 million from an annuity over the remainder of his life.

But the Executive Life Insurance Company of New York that was to have funded those payments went out of business in August 2013. The company estimated Yerkes annuity to be worth $2.7 million at the time it closed its doors, but capped the payments to Yerkes at $500,000.

Now, Yerkes is suing Cessna, saying it and several other insurers are on the hook for the unpaid balance of the settlement. The paper indicates that Cessna has not commented on the pending lawsuit. Nor has Lloyds of London, which purchased the annuity from Executive Life.

FMI: www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief.aspx?ev_id=25555&key=0