leewilcox

http://www.thisisderbyshire.co.uk/news/Family-skydive-crash-victim-awarded-163-2-4m-trial/article-3532532-detail/article.html Family of skydive crash victim awarded £2.4m after US trial < Previous 1 2 Next > Former Derby student Victoria Delacroix By Paul Whyatt [email protected] A US jury has awarded £12 million to the families of five people, including a former University of Derby student, who died in a skydiving plane crash that was blamed on defective engine parts. The wrongful death lawsuit was filed by families of five of the six people who died when an engine of the DeHavilland Twin Otter plane exploded near Sullivan Regional Airport, Missouri. The skydiving plane hit a utility pole and a tree as it came down, killing all but two of the people on board. Former Derby student Victoria Delacroix had set out to conquer her fear of heights by doing a tandem skydive. Just before take-off on July 29, 2006, the 22-year-old sent a text message to her family to say she was about to jump. Miss Delacroix, who had just finished a geography course at the University of Derby, had been volunteering in the US at a summer camp for disabled people. She suffered serious internal injuries. Her mother, Susan Delacroix, of Beckenham, Kent, said at the time of the crash: "Victoria was a sweet, caring girl who was adored by everyone." Miss Delacroix had lived with five friends in Duffield Road while at the university. Also killed in the crash were Melissa Berridge, 38, Robert Cook, 22, Scott Cowan, 42, Rob Walsh, 44, and David Pasternorster, 34. Mr Pasternorster's family was not a party to the lawsuit. Mr Cook sacrificed himself to cushion the impact for another passenger, a first-time skydiver, who survived. The jury in Franklin County, Missouri, awarded the families $4 million (£2.4 million) each before ordering engineering company Doncasters to pay $28 million (£17 million) in punitive damages. Doncasters manufactured the compressor turbine blade that failed. The lawsuit alleged that the company used a different alloy in the blade than the original component. According to an expert witness, Doncasters allegedly hid documents showing that the turbine blade failed tests. After the ruling, Doncasters chief executive Bill Ellis said: "We are surprised by and extremely disappointed with the outcome of the case. "The safety of air passengers is of the utmost importance to Doncasters, and our thoughts remain with the family and friends of those individuals affected. "However, we stand behind the airworthiness of our products. We believe we have strong grounds to overturn the judgement and will be filing post-trial motions in due course." "Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion" - Democritus

Following is a Facebook link to the Memorial for Bob Norman event. Facebook id required to view it. http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=188385521192339&index=1 "Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion" - Democritus

Little Bob - USPA Calendar - 1993 May - enroute to altitude at Hollister DZ in California. "Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion" - Democritus

Dear Bob, Thanks for all those great rides to altitude. You will be remembered and missed. Good luck on your new assignment. Now, just for old times sake, if you could make one more run from the peas to the trees, how about 5 left ..., gimme a cut..... DOOR ! Lee "Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion" - Democritus

http://www.russia-ic.com/news/show/11260/ Russian engineers are working on an individual flying vehicle, which users will need no parachute. New flying vehicle looks like a Batman suit. Its main idea is a wingsuit, widely used in sky-diving, which is a jumpsuit with textile webs between extremities. Ordinary wingsuit doesn’t provide landing, because it cannot be used insdead of a parachute. New development of Russian engineers boasts larger webs for improved stability and safe landing. Landing will be based upon “cushion” effect, common for landings with parachutes of “wing” type. Engineers are currently calculating optimum parameters for the suit and will soon start testing a full-scale model of the suit in a wind channel. "Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion" - Democritus

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Airplane. Parachute. Not skydiving. Say mods, would one of you move this to some place more appropriate. Thanks. "Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion" - Democritus

Would the person who moved this thread from the Incidents forum to Safety and Training kindly explain the reason(s) for this move? "Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion" - Democritus

Article quote: "... his emergency parachute opened too early... " Link in news article includes air video of deployment during R/W News Article http://www.news4jax.com/news4georgia/22107544/detail.html# Dropzone: http://thejumpingplace.com/ "Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion" - Democritus

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Evelyn_Beatrice_Hall According to this source the quote: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." This statement was misattributed to Voltaire. "Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion" - Democritus

So you would prefer censorship? I personally prefer freedom of speech. This is one of my favorite quotes: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Evelyn Beatrice Hall (1868 - 1919) English writer "Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion" - Democritus

JET! JET! JET! JET! "Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion" - Democritus

Actually, US 10^9 and UK 10^12 are both proper uses of billion, just different scales. The original poster could have made it clearer by beginning the post with ... an "American" politician use the word 'billion' .... It is ironic to me that in 1974 British Prime Minister Harold Wilson announced that the UK goverment statistics would from then on use the short scale (formerly US) rather than the long scale (formerly UK). It sure is a good thing that International System of Units (SI) was adopted in 1960. Removes all of those ambiguous terms such as billion, trillion, etc. "Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion" - Democritus

No skydivers, far as I can tell. http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jblcJpLiPXiEtBCjxRdK4RSyQxlQD8UAF2LG0 "Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion" - Democritus

LMAO - absolutely funny. Thanks for posting, made my day... "Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion" - Democritus