AOPA Pilot Magazine - June 2011 - 34

PILOTCOUNSEL
BY JOHN S. YODICE
AOPA SECRETARY
Electronic flight displays
and the courts
S
ome say that it was inevitable
that a manufacturer
of electronic flight displays
would get sued over the
in-flight distraction that a
display might cause. We now have such a case. As a
result of a fatal midair collision, Garmin was sued,
alleging that Garmin failed to warn of the risks
associated with the use of such a unit by noninstrument-rated
pilots operating in good visual
flight conditions. A summary review of this case
offers some valuable insights into the law of torts,
and specifically the subclassification of product
liability, as it applies to our flying.
A Lancair 235 and a Cessna 172, both operating VFR in good
Legal counselor
John S. Yodice is
a private pilot who
owns and flies a
Cessna 310.
ing, pilotage, and VOR. Thus, the plaintiffs’ experts
conclude, the Lancair pilots must have been flying
the airplane by maintaining eye contact with the
GNS 430 and manipulating the controls to keep the
white airplane icon on the magenta line. “Close
tracking,” they called it. In doing so, the pilots
abrogated their duty to look through the windscreen
for other traffic. They thus failed to see
and avoid the Cessna in the final 40 or so seconds
of the flight during which it should have been in
plain view.
Originally, the suit alleged that, 1) Garmin
defectively or negligently designed the GNS 430;
2) that it failed to properly train or instruct customers
in the appropriate use of the device; and,
3) Garmin failed to warn of the risk inherent in
its use by noninstrument-rated pilots. But, as the
case developed and because of the specifics of
weather, collided over Ohio, killing all four occupants of the
two aircraft. Neither aircraft was, or was required to be, in
contact with any air traffic control facility. The collision killed
the Lancair owner and his very experienced professional-pilot
passenger, and it killed the flight instructor and his instrument
trainee in the 172. The Lancair pilot-owner took more than 10
years to build the single-engine, low-wing aircraft. His efforts
earned the aircraft a prestigious EAA workmanship award.
The Lancair owner installed a Garmin GNS 430 naviga-
tion unit about a year prior to the crash. The unit, of course,
is capable of displaying a moving map that charts the progress
of the airplane in flight (represented by a white airplane
icon) relative to a desired course being flown (represented by
a magenta line), which are key facts in this case.
The National Transportation Safety Board investigated the
accident. The NTSB report includes the radar track showing
the path taken by the two airplanes. The faster Lancair overtook
the Cessna, hitting the side of the Cessna at a crossing
angle of approximately 61 degrees, at an altitude of between
2,300 and 2,500 feet. The NTSB report concludes that the
Cessna should have been visible to the pilots of the Lancair
for 40 seconds leading up to the collision. A witness who saw
the airplanes just prior to the crash observed them both in
straight-and-level flight. The witness noted that neither airplane
made any apparent effort to avoid the collision.
The plaintiffs hired four aviation experts to advance their
case. Reviewing this radar track, plaintiff’s experts describe
the Lancair’s path as a straight line, which they contend could
only be produced by navigating using the GNS 430. According
to these experts, the straight character of the Lancair’s track
rules out the possibility that the pilots employed any of the
other three acknowledged methods of flying—dead reckon-
AOPA PILOT • 34 • JUNE 2011
Ohio law, the case ultimately was reduced to the “failure to
warn” allegation.
It was acknowledged that the GNS 430 is widely available—
counting its companion model, the GNS 530, Garmin had sold
more than 100,000 units at the time of the suit. The packaging
of the sale includes a “Pilot’s Guide and Reference Manual,”
an Addendum, and a CD-ROM. None of these materials contained
any warning or instruction concerning the risk at issue
in the case.
On Garmin’s motion for summary judgment, the court dis-
missed the case, obviating the necessity for a trial. The court
granted judgment on three grounds:
For one, the plaintiffs failed to present any evidence that
Garmin knew or should have known of the alleged risks, a
necessary element of a “failure to warn” case. The court said:
“The mere possibility that the device could be used in a dangerous
fashion if a pilot disregarded his acknowledged duty to
scan for other traffic—a duty specifically put in place to ensure
safe flight practices—does not suffice to establish Garmin’s
knowledge of the risk that it would, in fact, be used that way.”
For another, that the purported “risks” were “open and
obvious.” Under Ohio law, failure to warn or instruct “about
open and obvious risks or a risk that is a matter of common
knowledge” does not render a product defective.
And for the third, the GNS was not the proximate cause of
the accident. “The court finds that the Lancair pilots’ inattention
to their duty to maintain a visual scan severed any
causal connection between Garmin’s alleged failure to warn
and plaintiffs’ injury as a matter of law.”
We don’t know yet whether this judgment will be appealed.
Aside from the legal aspects that are the subject of this par-
ticular column, it is also a reminder of our duty to see and
avoid other traffic, particularly when operating behind our
wonderful electronic flight displays.
AOPA Pilot Magazine - June 2011

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