AERO CLUB NOT LIABLE

Taranaki Daily News, 24 November 1934, Page 9

AERO CLUB NOT LIABLE

WIDOW CLAIMS DAMAGES COURT’S IMPORTANT JUDGMENT. EFFECT ON FUTURE AVIATION. INDEMNITY POINT CONSIDERED. By Telegraph—Press Association. Blenheim, Last Night. In a judgment of vital importance to aero clubs and aviation transport companies generally, Mr. Justice Blair in the Supreme Court this afternoon entered a non-suit so far as the Marlborough Aero Club was concerned in the case in which 'Winifred Gertrude Maindonald, Christchurch and formerly of Reefton, widow of the late Edgar Thomas Maindonald, Reefton, sought to recover £5OOO damages for alleged negligence resulting in the death of her husband following an aeroplane crash at the Blenheim aerodrome on Sunday, September 24, 1933. Plaintiff also joined as defendant New Zealand Airways, Ltd., a Dunedin company which had rebuilt the ill-fated aeroplane for the Marlborough Aero Club four months before the accident, alleging that owing to the company’s negligence a cotter pin was omitted from or improperly fitted to an elevator control, thus causing the disaster. The court reserved its decision so far as the action Against the company was concerned. His Honour said that, without hearing evidence on behalf of the defendant club, the case presented to him was that there had been a want of a certain ground inspection and a breach of the statutory regulation in that connection, but the evidence of all plaintiff’s witnesses was that the alleged fault in the machine could not have been discovered by any ordinary inspection. Therefore the cause and effect of thg accident had not been established.

Furthermore, deceased had signed a contract excluding the club from any responsibility for any defect in the machine. If in view of this he found for plaintiff obviously all passenger-carrying by aeroplane must cease for it would be impossible for anyone with any machinery, aviation or otherwise, to guarantee that some defect might not develop. Therefore, in spite of natural sympathy with Mrs. Maindonald in the loss of her husband, judgment for a non-suit against the aero club must be entered. The aero club was allowed costs according to scale, with disbursements and witnesses’ expenses. On behalf of New Zealand Airways, Mr. J. P. Ward adduced the evidence of Squadron-Leader T. M. White taken in Australia to prove that the cotter pin referred to in the action was actually, in position when the aeroplane was rebuilt.