Silk Air Flight 185 - Lawsuits

Lawsuits

In 2001, six families who had sued SilkAir for damages based on the allegation that the crash was caused by the pilot, were turned down by a Singapore High Court judge, who ruled that "the onus of proving that flight MI185 was intentionally crashed has not been discharged."

In 2004, a Los Angeles Superior Court jury in the United States, which was not allowed to hear or consider the NTSB's conclusions about the accident, decided that the crash was caused by a defective servo valve in the plane's rudder resulting in a rudder hard-over. The rudder manufacturer, Parker Hannifin, was ordered to pay the three families of victims involved in that case US$44 million. The company appealed the verdict, and the case was later settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.