On June 2,1983 an Air Canada flight en route from Dallas, Texas to Montreal, Canada sustained a fire in the aft lavatory of the McDonnell Douglas DC 9-32. After unsuccessfully attempting to extinguish the fire, the crew made an emergency landing at the Greater Cincinnati Airport near Covington, Kentucky. When the plane doors were opened, the passenger cabin filled with smoke and flames and 23 of the 46 passengers died.
The lawsuits that followed were consolidated in a federal MDL court in Los Angeles. After extended motion practice presenting arguments that the furnishings in the plane’s interior were fire-worthy under FDA regulations, our defendants were dismissed.