The NTSB did not mention any mechanical problems with the airplane or the engines and did not list engine failure as a possibility. The NTSB said only that the probable cause was “the pilot’s failure to maintain control of the airplane while maneuvering resulting in an inadvertent stall/spin.”

Teledyne Continental (TCM) was the manufacturer of the Baron’s engines way back in the 1970s or whenever this plane was produced (the NTSB doesn’t say). An engineer might say “it is impressive that those engines spun flawlessly for thirty years, not quitting until this pilot flew them right into the ground.” A jury saw this accident differently, ordering TCM to pay $4 million to the survivors of the pilot. The total market for these kinds of engines in new airplanes is about 2500 per year, of which Teledyne makes roughly half. So this judgment represents a cost of about $4,000 per engine sold every year to airplane manufacturers.

Wow. NTSB reports are not admissible in court. It sounds like, considering that $4m is enough to put the manufacturer out, there was no solution for the maker... go broke doing everything you can in defense, or go broke with the judgement. The plaintiff was in a pretty safe situation -- no one who lives was on the plane and no one would (to the survivors' face) say it was wrong to sue.

As the blog notes, with this kind of legal environment, US aerospace seems way too risky to be worth it.

Philip Greenspun’s Weblog » Airplane engine manufacturer loses $4 million judgment