They will be the 10 more folks and companies that Abby Normal thinks he can extort once he figures out who they are. Flying schools, maybe. Or maybe the company that made the gas cap that he didn't install properly. The last guy who worked on the airplane. Whomever he figures that he can spook.
His plan is simple: Scare 'em and screw 'em. He knows he's got no case, but figures that if he can make them worry enough about what a jury will think, they will be willing to make a deal.
I think he's shot himself in the foot with this one -- he's not going to be able to explain away his proactive stupidity, AND he has a vocal and active bunch of folks pointing these things out. This is the sort of thing which spawns amicus curiae briefs and intervenors, either of which mean big problems for Captain Stupid.
Abby is going to try first to prove that the hardware is dangerous, and second that he was not made aware of "known hazards." He's going to play this up for the jury, with full histrionics. He'll moan and groan as he gets out of his chair, and he'll exaggerate the use of his canes. We can expect him to imply that the crash made his condition worse.
The other side will show that he took off in violation of Federal law.
He will then try to twist it to claim that he couldn't know that he had so little fuel (because of the design and because his IPs didn't fully explain it), and the lack of warning placards allowed him to remain ignorant.
Abby will do everything possible to make the jury see this as the case of a poor old local guy on canes v. a foreign corporation which makes expensive planes which just barely meet US standards, and don't care how many of them crash.
However, intervention or amicus can present an independent source of information. The intervenor or amicus can explain that pilots have always been taught about fuel consumption and the law requiring enough fuel at takeoff for the flight plus 30 minutes. They can make the jury question the whole chain of claims that Abby will be making, and why he didn't immediately make the NTSB report that a responsible pilot would. They can make the jury question Abby's qualifications, ability and judgment.
And this is likely to happen, because if they make the award to Abby for being stupid and lucky, this will have a lasting and detrimental effect on aviation, the cost of insurance and aircraft, and influence public opinion against general aviation. That means that we have a stake in this, not just the companies that he's trying to extort.
You could get him for using it to peek up skirts!
