NEW ORLEANS — After longtime New Orleans news anchor Nancy Parker died in a plane crash in August, her family is suing the pilot's company and the manufacturer of the plane's engine for damages.
A lawsuit filed in Orleans Parish Civil District Court on Friday, Oct. 11 accuses Drug Fighter Enterprises and Lycoming Engines of negligence. Drug Fighter is the company founded by pilot Franklin Augustus, and Lycoming Engines is the manufacturer of the engine in Augustus' prop plane that crashed on August 16, killing both him and Parker.
Parker, whose full name was Nancy Parker Boyd, anchored at WVUE FOX8 for nearly 25 years. She was creating a special report on the life and works of Augustus, a community activist and lifelong stunt pilot, when his two-seater plane crashed shortly after takeoff from the New Orleans Lakefront Airport with Parker in the passenger seat.
Parker's husband Glenn Boyd and their three children are named as the plaintiffs in the civil suit. It claims that Drug Fighter Enterprises failed to maintain the 1983 Pitts S-2B aircraft, knew about mechanical problems and failed to exercise reasonable care in taking Parker in the air.
It also claims that Lycoming Engines, a subsidary of the Rhode Island-based Textron aviation company and the manufacturer of the plane's engine, built an engine that was "unreasonably dangerous in design," that "failed to provide an adequate warning" before the crash.
The lawsuit claims Parker suffered "extreme mental anguish and emotional distress and "extreme physical pain and suffering" before she died.
It also claims that as a result of her death, Parker's family has suffered "damages of loss of nurture, care, guidance, affection, and emotional and economic support." Two of Parker's children are school aged.
For their alleged negligence leading to the crash, the lawsuit asks for "reasonable" compensation to the family under the circumstances, as well as legal fees.
The National Transportation Safety Board opened the ongoing investigation into the crash in the days following, and discovered the plane appeared to have engine problems after takeoff despite maintenance logs that showed proper care taken and there were no issues before take off.
Besides being a stunt pilot and avid flyer, Augustus was a longtime community activist, a U.S. Army veteran (Military Police), the president of the Lake Charles Tuskegee Airmen Chapter and a New Orleans Parish Sheriff's Office reserve deputy.
Following the crash, FOX8 released the following statement:
"Nancy was a part of the FOX 8 family for the last 23 years, she put her heart and soul into her work, covering thousands of stories and touching countless lives. She made a difference in the lives of those she reported on. She will be sorely missed, and her absence creates a void that cannot be filled."
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