Family of man killed in helicopter crash in Dallas awarded $116 million in lawsuit

A New York jury this week awarded a record $116 million in a civil lawsuit to the family of a Dallas man who died in a helicopter crash in 2018.

Trevor Cadigan, 26, drowned on March 11, 2018, when a tour helicopter crashed and overturned in the East River. Four other people, including Dallas firefighter Brian McDaniel, 26, were killed in the crash.

The accident was caused by an improvised seat belt that became caught on the helicopter's fuel shut-off lever, activating the lever, shutting down the engine and causing the crash, the National Transportation Safety Board found.

The jury concluded that Liberty Helicopters, the owner of the aircraft, and FlyNYON, the operator of the helicopter for sightseeing flights over New York City, were primarily responsible for the deaths. The New York Times reported. Jurors also found part of the deaths blamed on Dart Aerospace, the manufacturer of the helicopter's emergency flotation system, which failed to fully inflate during the crash, causing the plane to tip onto its side and fall into the river.

According to legal research firm VerdictSearch, the $116 million is the largest jury verdict for a single wrongful death in New York City history.

Attorney Gary C. Robb, who represented the Cadigan family, said in a statement to WFAA-TV (Channel 8) that the family hopes the ruling will lead to improvements in flight safety.

“These helicopter tour operators lured Trevor into a death trap, and they knew it,” Robb said in a statement. “They knew for months that in the event of an emergency ditching, the passengers would have no chance of escaping their makeshift harness and restraint system.”

Liberty Helicopters and Dart Aerospace did not immediately respond to calls from The Dallas Morning News on Friday. A spokesman for FlyNYON said The times We are considering the next steps and “express our deepest condolences to the Cadigan family.”

Cadigan, a video journalist from Dallas, graduated from Southern Methodist University and wrote for The Dallas Morning News' GuideLive for several years.

Cadigan also worked as an intern for WFAA and was the son of production manager Jerry Cadigan, who died in July. The younger Cadigan had moved to New York to pursue a career at Business Insider. McDaniel and Cadigan attended Bishop Lynch High School together, and McDaniel visited Cadigan in New York this weekend.

Daniel Thompson (34), Tristan Hill (29) and Carla Vallejos Blanco (29) also died in the crash. Only the pilot, Richard Vance, survived. Vance was wearing only a Federal Aviation Administration-approved restraint belt, which enabled him to escape with only minor injuries, the safety authority found. The other passengers were wearing the same restraint belt, but were also strapped into improvised belts.