In February, a helicopter crashed north of Phoenix, Ariz., killing five people. On board that helicopter were pilot John “Rick” Morton and Thomas J. Stewart, along with Stewart’s wife, child and brother-in-law. According to an investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board, the passengers and pilot most likely knew they were going to die moments before their chopper went down. Stewart and his family were on their way back to Scottsdale after spending a long weekend at the family’s ranch near Flagstaff. While an official cause for the crash has yet to be determined by investigators, a mechanical failure is suspected to be at the root of the helicopter’s problems. Witnesses who saw the helicopter go down claim that pieces of the aircraft were falling from the sky just moments before the crash.

Now the pilot’s wife, Charlotte Morton, and her adult daughter, Brenda, have filed a lawsuit against the mechanic who did repairs on the helicopter and his company, Cascade Airframe Repair Inc., as well as the manufacturer of the aircraft, Eurocopter, and the previous owner of the helicopter, Clearwater Corp. Lawyers for the Morton family allege that those named in the suit are negligent because they had knowledge that the chopper’s blades were faulty. One of the main rotor blades on the crashed aircraft had been severely damaged after flying through a intense thunderstorm and had undergone extensive repairs by both Cascade and Eurocopter. The lawsuit states that the cause of the crash was a crack that developed along the edge of the rotor blade, leading it to expand and separate while in flight. The lawsuit is seeking unspecified damages and none of the defendants has made an official response to the suit.

Morton had been the Stewart family’s personal pilot for years. Previously, Morton was a U.S. Army veteran who had flown helicopters in Vietnam. He accumulated more than 11,000 hours of flight time during the past 30 years of his career. He was killed on the day of his 38th wedding anniversary.

In an international tragedy last month, Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife and 94 other passengers were killed in a plane crash outside the Russian city of Smolensk. As Poland and the world mourned the loss of the president and many Polish leaders, investigators went to work to find out what caused the flight to go down in a treacherous ravine.

Last week, a preliminary report unveiled that at least two passengers visited the cockpit before it crashed, while several other passengers are said to have been using cell phones while in the air. Cell phone use on airplanes can affect navigation. In this case, proper navigation was crucial as the pilots were navigating through dense fog and challenging terrain. These details were published last week in a report conducted by Russian and Polish authorities. Russia and Poland, who previously have failed to cooperate on local and international matters, are determined to join forces in this case in an effort to heal their rocky relationship.

The investigation thus far has uncovered at least two voices not belonging to crew members on the cockpit flight recorders. What the voices said and who they belonged to has not been revealed yet by officials. The voices were heard a little more than 15 minutes before the plane crashed. One of the voices, however, is believed to be that of Air Force Commander General Andrzej Blasik. News of unknown passengers in the cockpit has furthered speculation by the international press that President Kaczynski or someone in his entourage pressured the crew to land, despite the already-poor visibility having shrunk to about 660 feet.

The airplane that went down on April 10th was filled with political figures en route to a memorial ceremony for Polish officers killed by Soviet secret police in 1940. Russian and Polish investigators also are looking into whether the terrain around the Smolensk military airport distorted instrument readings.

Products marketed as “all-natural” or “good for you,” like our daily vitamins, have been slowly revealing themselves in courtrooms as products that may need to be monitored as closely as prescription medications.

Last month, a Texas judge approved a $110 million settlement against the makers of vitamin supplement E-Ferol. The drug is thought to be the cause of death of nearly 40 infants in the mid-1980s.  These drugs have clearly caused injuries to children.  The company which marketed and distributed the solution claimed the supplement had the power to prevent blindness, although it had never been cleared by the Food and Drug Administration. Pulled off the market in 1984, E-Ferol caused dozens of children to suffer from liver and kidney damage after taking the drug.

Elsewhere, the maker of the Ultimate Power Meal, Gary Null, Ph.D., filed a suit against his own supplier this week after he took the drug and experienced dangerous side effects. In his lawsuit, Null alleges that the Ultimate Power Meal contains 1,000 times more vitamin D than labeled. After consuming his own product in December 2009, Null became severely ill with serious fatigue and bleeding from within his feet. Null is seeking $10 million in damages from Triarco, the manufacturer of Ultimate Power Meal, based in Wayne, N.J. Null claims that Triarco did not properly test the product before sending it out. Since the reporting of Null’s reaction, Ultimate Power Meal has been pulled off the market and subjected to a thorough recall. Health industry insiders claim that Null’s suit is strategic and may prevent class action lawsuits against his company for reactions caused by using the product.

And last year, over-the-counter drug czar Bayer Inc. was sued for claims by their Men’s One-A-Day vitamin that touted prevention from prostate cancer. The libel suit was filed in San Fransico in October.

Nobody likes to admit it, but at some point, everyone has been suckered by a product that they’ve seen on television that promises to do this or that. Once we get it home, however, we discover that this miracle product is actually a total dud. We toss it in the trash and chalk it up to another example of “buyer beware.” When it comes to prescription drugs, though, false promises can be extremely hazardous. Two pharmaceutical giants, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca, settled two separate lawsuits last month. Both lawsuits involve false claims, illegal marketing and unapproved uses of two highly-profitable and extremely popular medications.

Johnson & Johnson paid out $81 million to settle a case that claimed it marketed the epilepsy drug Topamax for unapproved psychiatric uses. Topamax was thrust into the legal system after a Virginia psychiatrist filed a whistle blower lawsuit that assisted the Justice Department in making its case. His lawsuit claimed that the company promoted Topamax for unapproved treatments for alcohol dependence to weight loss and that Johnson & Johnson gave doctors financial kickbacks. J&J pleaded guilty to a single criminal charge. Six million of the settlement will pay a criminal fine, while the rest of the money will resolve civil claims that the company’s marketing of the drug led government health programs to pay for Topamax for unapproved uses.

AstraZeneca’s false marketing came with a steeper price tag: $520 million. The drug giant had marketed its anti-psychotic medication Seroquel for uses that the Food and Drug Administration had not approved. The suit alleged that AstraZeneca had encouraged doctors to prescribe Seroquel for a myriad of unapproved uses, from post-traumatic stress disorder to anger management. Like the J&J suit, the government claimed the company sweetened the deal for doctors by handing over money to prescribe the drug. AztraZeneca, however, has denied the allegations and agreed to pay the $520 million settlement.

Both Seroquel and Topamax also have faced class action suits from patients who claim the drugs didn’t deliver what they promised.

The horrors of a plane crash seemingly got worse for Jacalyn Brown of New Jersey when she survived and was left wondering if she would ever be rescued. Brown had boarded a small Cessna 337A on May 17, 2008, ordered by her employer Geo-Marine Inc. Aboard the plane were two scientists, Stephen Claussen and Juan Carlos Salinas, as well as the pilot, John Ambroult. Even though Geo-Marine Inc. was warned that the plane was unsafe and outdated, the company insisted the three use the Sessna on a routine surveying trip. Plagued by mechanical issues and weather problems from the start, the flight eventually took off but soon crashed into the woods in Eagleswood, N.J. Everyone on the plane died except for Jacalyn Brown and Juan Carlos Salinas. The two were badly injured and waited for hours to be rescued. Now Brown is suing the estate of the pilot, the company that hired him and the state troopers in charge of the search that she claims worsened her injuries.

Ambroult, according to the lawsuit, ignored mechanical problems with the aircraft and negligently flown when he shouldn’t have. Salinas testified in an investigation with the NTSB that he witnessed the propellers of the plane stopping while in mid-flight. According to reports, Ambroult never used his radio to make distress calls and relied on the passengers to help him operate the airplane. The lawsuit also targets the company that hired Ambroult because they knowingly put their customers’ lives in the hands of an aircraft and pilot that were both dangerous.

Brown claims that state troopers, while searching the heavily-wooded area, did not conduct the search for a sufficient time to save herself and Salinas from further injury. State troopers, on the other hand, maintain that they did a proper search in an area that is heavily forested. She is seeking to cover medical costs as well as compensation for her physical and mental pain and suffering.

The South Carolina plane crash that killed four people and seriously injured Blink 182 drummer Travis Barker and DJ Adam “DJ AM” Goldstein was found to be caused by under-inflated tires by a federal investigation last week.

The Learjet crash that happened nearly 18 months ago has been the subject of several class action lawsuits, including one settled for $20 million by the Estate of Adam Goldstein in January. The jet’s pilot and copilot as well as Barker’s bodyguard, Charles Still, and assistant, Chris Baker, were all killed in the crash that occurred in September 2008 in Columbia, South Carolina.

According to the National Travel and Safety Board, the combination of poorly inflated tires, an overlooked design flaw in the Learjet 60, as well as the pilot’s decision to cancel takeoff after it was too late proved to be the cause of the plane crash. All four tires on the plane, the report found, exploded almost simultaneously causing bits of shredded tire to fly up into the hydraulic system and cause the brakes to fail. The tires in question were said to have been checked by the charter company three weeks prior to the accident even though investigators maintain that the improperly cared for tires should have been replaced after eight days.

NTSB investigators noted that operators of small charter flights are often unaware of how rapidly tires on small planes deflate and that the inflation levels are not checked regularly. Learjet and the Federal Flight Administration were also both blamed by the NTSB for not taking aggressive action to repair a design flaw in the rear thrust reversers on the model of the jet involved in the crash. The same Learjet flaws were also cited in a 2001 plane crash in Alabama.

Tire inflation issues have become a growing concern for the NTSB. Last week, the organization addressed a September 2009 Learjet accident that was caused largely in part by unchecked tire pressure.

The heated debates surround FDA-approved human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines like Gardasil have swirled around the drugs since they hit the market in 2006. HPV is a leading cause of cervical cancer. Still, many have claimed the vaccines are unnecessary, harmful and may cause injury or death. Nevertheless, HPV vaccines were heavily promoted and publicized by drug companies in a series of aggressive television commercials and magazine advertisements. Sales of Gardasil reached a whopping $1.4 billion worldwide in 2008, thanks largely in part to Merck’s 1 Less campaign that urges adolescent girls to protect themselves from HPV. The company convinced consumers that vaccination against HPV was the responsible and smart way to protect young women against this growing problem. Yet the safety of Gardasil remains in question, leaving many parents of young girls frightened and confused by the product’s claims and side effects.

This week, a lawsuit filed in the U.S. Federal Court of Claims alleges that Gardasil caused the death of a 16-year-old girl.  It has not been determined whether the negligence of the pharmaceutical company caused the girls death.  According to official court documents, two days after receiving her final Gardasil shot, the teenage girl collapsed in seizures while walking through a parking lot. Although she was rushed to the hospital, she died just a few moments later. The collapse and sudden death of an otherwise healthy young woman, say lawyers, just two days after receiving Gardasil is a compelling case against the Merck-produced drug. The suit is pending in the vaccine injury compensation program with the U.S. Federal Court of Claims in Washington D.C.

Concerns about Gardasil’s safety surfaced in late 2008, when 12,424 incidents of injuries related to Gardasil were reported in the national Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. Another report by Judicial Watch alleges that Gardasil was not properly tested and furthermore may not even protect users from HPV.

Past lawsuits involving Gardasil claim the drug was responsible for blood clots, seizures, and paralysis.

The aromas that get trapped in an airplane flying 20,000 feet in the air are a standard issue frequent fliers have come to expect when traveling. Passenger body odor, excessive perfumes and odd-smelling food souvenirs are the kind of smelly stuff travelers grin and bear when flying. Toxic fumes, however, are another thing all together. Exposure to toxic fumes created by commercial airplanes can cause memory loss, headaches, vomiting and visual impairment. In July of 2009, Terry Williams filed a product liability lawsuit against Boeing and McDonnell Douglas claiming that a “fume event” which occurred on an American Airlines plane caused him migraines and other health issues. Williams, a flight attendant for more than 15 years, was told by doctors that she had inhaled toxic fumes and the lack of filters aboard the plane left her unprotected from the deadly odor. Throughout the years, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has been plagued with increasing complaints of toxic fume exposure aboard commercial flights.

Last month, a similar lawsuit was filed by a woman who claims that fumes aboard an American Airlines flight actually caused her to have stroke. Vida Chenier claims that while she was a passenger abroad American Airlines Flight 2073 from Chicago’s O’Hare airport to San Juan, Puerto Rico, on March 26, 2008, toxic fumes contaminated the cabin through the plane’s ventilation system. Chenier experienced oxygen deprivation while aboard the plane and she developed a chronic cough and painful headache. Three days later, Chenier’s health worsened, according to the lawsuit, and she began coughing up blood. Finally, on April 4, 2008, Vida Chenier suffered a near-fatal stroke. The lawsuit alleges that American Airlines failed to protect its passengers against the toxic fumes by not installing toxic fume sensor equipment on the aircraft.

She is seeking $50,000 in damages to cover medical expenses. While no trial date has been set, American Airlines has remained silent during allegations of unwelcome toxic fumes aboard any of their planes.

In local newspapers around the country, unfortunate stories of older people with physical impairments who continue to operate a car and subsequently cause fatal accidents periodically wind up on the front page. More often than not, it is later revealed in most of these cases that the driver should not have been driving at all. Accidental deaths, injuries and property damages are just a few the nightmares that can occur when an older person no longer able to drive sits behind the wheel of the car. So imagine the horror of losing your loved ones in an airplane crash caused mainly by the 86-year-old pilots’ deteriorating vision. Several families experienced this unthinkable tragedy in June 2008 in northern Ohio.

The pilot, Gene Damschroder, was hosting a pancake breakfast at the airport to benefit the local Lions’ Club and taking people up for airplane rides after that event. Mr. Damschroder was a highly experienced pilot who had flown since he was twenty years old. Killed in the crash were Mr. Damschroder, Bill Ansted, 62, and Allison Ansted, 23; Danielle Gerwin, 31, and Emily Gerwin, 4, and Matt Clearman, 25.

The National Transportation Safety Board issued a report last week which stated the pilot of the airplane, Gene Damschroder Sr., was to blame for the accident. Damschroder had been warned by his eye doctor not to drive as the man had been in treatment for macular generation for two years. Macular degeneration is a condition that usually affects older adults and results in the loss of the ability to recognize faces, read or drive. Despite this dangerous disorder, the pilot denied having vision problems when he received his airman certificate in 2007. The NTSB noted the Federal Aviation Administration now has revoked the certificate of the medical examiner who approved Damschroder’s paperwork after the doctor had reported that there were no problems with his vision.

While the NTSB could not prove that Damschroder’s eyesight alone was the cause of the plane crash, investigators concluded that he used poor judgment in continuing to fly the plane; those who witnessed the accident said the aircraft was flying at a low altitude and banking before it crashed. Furthermore, the report said that based on medical knowledge of his condition, Damschroder would have had difficulty seeing readings on the cockpit instruments as well as objects on the ground. The World War II seaplane pilot also had been involved in a traffic accident just 10 days prior to the crash, according to the NTSB. Damschroder had told a state trooper that glaring sun in his eyes kept him from noticing an oncoming vehicle as he was making a turn into the airport.

Families of the victims have filed a lawsuit against the the estate of Damschroder, while the pilot’s son has admitted that his father’s declining vision and reflexes may have been the main reason for the crash.

Putting a price on something as serious as a lost limb or permanent bodily damage is the kind of task no jury wants to undertake during a trial. On Monday, a federal jury in Austin, Texas, was faced with just such a daunting responsibility, and they ordered boat manufacturer Brunswick Corp. to pay $3.8 million to a young man who lost part of his leg after it was caught in a propeller on Lake Austin.

Jacob Brochtrup, who was 18 years old in 2007, lost part of his leg when he was wakeboarding with friends while celebrating the 4th of July holiday. Brochtrup had jumped in the water planning to grab onto the towline behind the motorboat he and his friends were in. Unexpectedly, the driver put the boat in reverse and the propeller of the engine caught the top of Brochtrup’s right leg. The loss of blood was so great that by the time Brochtrup had arrived at the hospital he was clinically dead.

The jury decided that Brunswick was partially liable for the 2007 injury because, according to Brochtrup’s lawsuit, the company did not have safety devices like covers and guards which may have prevented Jacob Brochtrup’s accident. The money awarded to Brochtrup is intended for his medical and legal expenses as well as physical and emotional suffering.

The jury ruled that Brunswick was 66 percent liable for the incident while Brochtrup and the boat’s driver were responsible for the rest. The driver was not mentioned in the lawsuit and therefore will not be obligated to pay Brochtrup any damages. Brochtrup was thrilled with the verdict and hoped that it would send a message to the boating industry to increase the safety of their products.

Brunswick, on the other hand, stands by the quality and design of their products and is currently considering appealing the verdict.