Continental Motors, Textron Out of Arizona Plane Crash Lawsuit

Airplane engine maker Continental Motors Inc. and aircraft company Textron Aviation Inc. aren’t subject to suit in Arizona over a plane crash there because they lack connections to the state, the Ninth Circuit said Wednesday.

The court distinguished the facts of Ford Motor Co. v. Montana Eighth Judicial District Court, in which the U.S. Supreme Court determined that jurisdiction existed in accident cases where Ford sold the vehicles out of state.

And surgeon Peter Spanganberg, who piloted the airplane and crash-landed it without fatalities, isn’t entitled to jurisdictional discovery “because the request amounted to nothing more than a hunch” ...