Minnesota Jury Awards $16.4M To Families Of Cirrus Aircraft Plane Crash Victims

UPDATED: Jul 16, 2021

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UPDATED: Jul 16, 2021Fact Checked

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Jeffrey Johnson

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Jeffrey Johnson is a legal writer with a focus on personal injury. He has worked on personal injury and sovereign immunity litigation in addition to experience in family, estate, and criminal law. He earned a J.D. from the University of Baltimore and has worked in legal offices and non-profits in Maryland, Texas, and North Carolina. He has also earned an MFA in screenwriting from Chapman Univer...

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UPDATED: Jul 16, 2021

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It’s all about you. We want to help you make the right legal decisions.

We strive to help you make confident insurance and legal decisions. Finding trusted and reliable insurance quotes and legal advice should be easy. This doesn’t influence our content. Our opinions are our own.

Editorial Guidelines: We are a free online resource for anyone interested in learning more about legal topics and insurance. Our goal is to be an objective, third-party resource for everything legal and insurance related. We update our site regularly, and all content is reviewed by experts.

UPDATED: Jul 16, 2021

Advertiser Disclosure

It’s all about you. We want to help you make the right legal decisions.

We strive to help you make confident insurance and legal decisions. Finding trusted and reliable insurance quotes and legal advice should be easy. This doesn’t influence our content. Our opinions are our own.

UPDATED: Jul 16, 2021Fact Checked

A Minnesota jury recently awards $16.4 million to the families of two Grand Rapids men who were killed in a Cirrus Aircraft plane crash in 2003. The families alleged that Cirrus failed to provide adequate training to the pilot as part of the purchase agreement – the lack of which led to their deaths.

Wrongful death lawsuit

This Minnesota wrongful death case involved two men who were flying a Cirrus SR-22 four passenger plane. According to an article in the Star Tribune, Gary Prokop purchased the plane from Cirrus Aircraft and received training on how to operate it as part of the purchase agreement. Prokop was flying the plane with passenger Jim Kosak in 2003, but Prokop became “disoriented and lacked proficiency in using the plane’s autopilot system.” The plane crashed and killed both men.

Their families sued Cirrus and the University of North Dakota Aerospace Foundation, a private flight training firm on the university campus, and alleged that the instruction the company provided was inadequate. Although Cirrus disagreed and said that overcast conditions were the real reason for the crash, the families’ MN personal injury attorney was able to prove to the jury that Prokop’s lack of training was primarily responsible for their deaths. A jury awarded the families $16.4 million – $9 million of which will be used to support Prokop’s wife and three children and $7.4 million which will be used to support Kosak’s wife and five children.

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Jeffrey Johnson

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Jeffrey Johnson is a legal writer with a focus on personal injury. He has worked on personal injury and sovereign immunity litigation in addition to experience in family, estate, and criminal law. He earned a J.D. from the University of Baltimore and has worked in legal offices and non-profits in Maryland, Texas, and North Carolina. He has also earned an MFA in screenwriting from Chapman Univer...

Insurance Lawyer

Editorial Guidelines: We are a free online resource for anyone interested in learning more about legal topics and insurance. Our goal is to be an objective, third-party resource for everything legal and insurance related. We update our site regularly, and all content is reviewed by experts.

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