Montrose Crash Copilot Suing Bombardier

Eric Wicksell is suing Bombardier for negligence, claiming the Challenger 601 is defective because operating and training manuals didn’t disclose what he alleges is the twinjet’s high susceptibility to icing. Wicksell was the copilot of the Challenger 601 involved in the fatal crash at Montrose Regional Airport in Colorado on Nov. 28, 2004. Although the NTSB held Wicksell and the pilot to blame for the crash for not de-icing the aircraft, in its study of the accident the Safety Board said, “Aircraft such as the Challenger with so-called ‘hard wings’ [that is, those without leading-edge high-lift devices] have been found to be more susceptible to the effects of icing.”