DynCorp Sued by Army Pilot Widows

By Carol Kennedy

Published on August 24, 2005

Army Capt. Kevin Michael Norman from Illinois and Chief Warrant Officer David Wayne Snow of North Carolina were conducting a post-maintenance test flight at a base near Seoul, South Korea when, according to the lawsuit, the aircraft suddenly flipped over and began an uncontrollable plunge to the ground.

Brandi Lynn Norman and Amy Noonkester Snow filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Fort Worth. The suit alleges that Dyncorp employees neglected to perform a Federal Aviation Administration-ordered maintenance check on the C-12F aircraft's elevator. The elevator is the horizontal part of the tail structure responsible for vertical movement of the plane's nose. The FAA requires that the elevator be serviced within 200 flight hours. The C-12F flown by Capt. Norman and Officer Snow had surpassed 200 hours of flight time since the FAA's maintenance directive.

A DynCorp spokesperson refused to comment saying that the company had not yet been served with the lawsuit.

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