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Houston-area sisters killed in plane crash

On Behalf of | Jun 8, 2012 | Wrongful Death |

The tragic plane crash that happened in Nigeria earlier this week has left a Houston-area family stricken with grief and begging for answers. Two sisters, who lived in a Houston suburb, were on board the doomed flight that has so far killed at least 150 people.

And a sister of the two victims has said that the crash was preventable, pointing the finger for the wrongful deaths at Dana Airlines, who owned the plane that crashed. She said that Nigeria has a ban on using planes that are more than 20 years old, and reports have surfaced that the crashed plane was 22 years old. She called the crash a case of “criminal negligence.”

  – Article By Richard Weaver

According to multiple reports, the flight crew reported a catastrophic engine failure before it crashed into a crowded residential neighborhood a few miles short of the runway.

The sisters, ages 23 and 28, were in Nigeria to attend the wedding of a friend. One owned several financial planning offices in the Houston area, and the other was an electrical engineer who previously worked for NASA, but was currently in graduate school to get a biomedical engineering degree.

And while the victims’ sister may be pointing the finger at the airline, the Associated Press is reporting that others have already taken action in the United States to seek justice for the loss of loved ones. A lawsuit has been filed in U.S. District Court against jet manufacturer Boeing, which bought McDonnell-Douglas, the original manufacturer of the MD-83 jet. The lawsuit also names Pratt & Whitney, which makes jet engines.

The lawsuit claims the Pratt & Whitney engines “used a defective and unreasonably dangerous design.” The attorney, who filed the suit on behalf of a man whose wife died in the crash, said that plane engines don’t normally just fail, and that something terrible had to go wrong for it to happen.

Source: My Fox Houston, “Family speaks after sisters die in Nigerian plane crash,” Damali Keith, June 5, 2012

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