Case Name
Continental Airlines, Inc. v. McDonnell Douglas Corporation, 216 Cal.App.3d 3888, 264 Cal.Rptr. 779 [1](1990) Court of Appeals of California.
Statement of Facts
At Los Angeles International Airport, a horrible accident by a continental DC-10 took place On March 1, 1978. According to some continental airlines experts the reason behind the accident was “two tires burst on the left landing gear”1. Despite the efforts of the captain to stop the plane, it was too late to control a plan that ran off the ramp with at 85 miles per hour. As a result “The landing gear broke through the tarmac, burrowed into the ground, and was ripped from the wing, making a 3.7 foot hole which allowed fuel to pour from the wing fuel tanks. The plane was severely damaged by the resulting fire and rendered unrepeatable”2.
DC-10 aircrafts were sold to continental by Douglas 1986. In order to close the deal with continental, Douglas has used sales brochures that described the technical details of the DC-10. In addition, Douglas had covered in its briefings that “the fuel tank will not rupture under crash load conditions"3; and that the landing gear "are designed for wipe-off without rupturing the wing fuel tank"4; that "the support structure is designed to a higher strength than the gear to prevent fuel tank rupture due to an accidental landing gear overload"[2]; that the DC-10 "is designed and tested for crashworthiness"[3]; that the "landing gear will be tested"[4] to demonstrate the fail safe integrity and wipe-off characteristics of the gear design; and that "good reliability"[5] for the DC-10 landing gear could be predicted with an "unusually high degree of confidence"[6]because of its close similarity to the successful design on the DC-8 and DC-9 aircraft. ...