The widows of two pilots killed when a wave swept their helicopter off a destroyer filed suit in San Diego Monday against the U.S. Navy, asking them to declare the San Diego-based destroyer “unreasonably dangerous.”
Lt. Cmdr. Landon L. Jones, 35, of Lompoc and Chief Warrant Officer Jonathan S. Gibson, 32, of Aurora, Ore. died in the Red Sea when a helicopter they were piloting attempted to land on USS William P. Lawrence on Sept. 22, 2013, a destroyer based out of San Diego. Three other people were on board, but survived.
San Diego-based Pilot Law, P.C. filed the suit on behalf of Mrs. Theresa Jones and Mrs. Christina Gibson and their children, accusing the U.S. Navy, Gibbs & Cox Inc., Huntington Ingalls, Bath Iron Works Corp. and commanding officer Commander Jana Vavasseur of knowing about design flaws on certain Navy ships and their helicopter landing platforms.
The MH-605 helicopter landed on the deck, the lawsuit alleges, and shortly after it landed, the commanding officer changed the course and speed of the vessel, causing a wave to crash into the flight deck and knock the helicopter into the sea.
The Lawrence has a “low-freeboard” flight deck; the freeboard is the distance between the waterline and flight deck is smaller than usual. The lawsuit alleges a low-freeboard deck design defect the Navy knew about since 1983 was the result of the sailors’ deaths.
“Between January 2003 and March 2013, just six months before this incident, the Navy documented at least nine other mishaps involving waves washing over destroyer flight decks,” Brian Lawler, an attorney on the case, said in a statement. “This systemic disregard for the safety of its personnel places the culpability for the deaths of these two pilots, husbands and fathers squarely on the shoulders of the Navy and the designers and builders of these ships.”
From 1983 to Sept. 22, the Navy’s Safety Center documented at least 13 Hazard Reports regarding waves damaging helicopters and flight decks, the lawsuit alleges, nine of which occurred in the six months leading up to the crash.
The Navy systemically disregarded the safety of personnel, the plaintiffs allege in the lawsuit, and failed to train crews to maneuver the ships with helicopters operating on their decks.
NBC7 has reached out to the U.S. Navy for a comment and will update this story when requests for comment are returned.
