The Egyptians have been claiming there was a catastropic failure of some sort with the crashed planes tail section...sound familiar? Maybe the attorneys have more information than the public.

Does anybody have any information about the Parker-Hanifin Corp., maker of the plane's flight control system? Which control systems do they provide? ASSOCIATED PRESS February 17, 2000

LOS ANGELES -- A California man filed a federal lawsuit blaming EgyptAir for the deaths of his parents in the crash of Flight 990 off the coast of Massachusetts.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court on behalf of H. Phillip Tresenrider, of Sebastopol, Calif. Tresenrider's mother, Barbara Lee Smith, and stepfather, Gerald Smith, died when the Boeing 767 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on Oct. 31, 1999.

The suit seeks unspecified damages. The cause of the crash still is under investigation.

Boeing Co. and Parker-Hanifin Corp., maker of the plane's flight control system, were named as co-defendants in the suit, according to a news release issued Thursday by Tresenrider's attorney, Terry O'Reilly.

Calls to EgyptAir's New York office and to the headquarters Parker-Hanifin after business hours Thursday were not immediately returned. A call to Boeing also was not returned.

A $50 million wrongful death lawsuit was filed against EgyptAir and Boeing in November by the estate of a New Jersey chef who died aboard Flight 990.

Ghassan Koujan, 38, of Paterson, N.J., was among the 217 people on the Cairo-bound Boeing 767 when it crashed into the Atlantic on Oct. 31.

link

http://www.uniontrib.com/news/state/20000217-991805-egyptairsuit.html

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), February 18, 2000

Answers

Carl

Most interesting post. You may recall from an earlier thread that Parker Hannifin is being sued along with Boeing over Flight 427 (Pittsburg). I found, at that time, a defunct link to Parker's site and didn't have time to pursue it further. On the "parts made in China" thread I posted the link to Boeing's Bronze suppliers; don't recall seeing Parker there, but did get word elsewhere that Trig Aerospace is the manufacturer of the jackscrew/gimbal nut assembly. Boeing's page doesn't have a live link to Trig. If you have time, go to Boeing's Bronze page and look at the other pages with its other suppliers--one of them might have a live link to Parker. Sometimes I have just too many trails to follow and not enough time to do any of them justice. Ah, the life of a net researcher!

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), February 18, 2000.

Thanks for the leads Rachel, I'll see what I can find. I already ran a couple of searches on Parker-Hanifin Corp and have had no luck. Good hunting!

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), February 18, 2000.

http://www.parker.com/

-- Norm Harrold (nharrold@terragon.com), February 18, 2000.

Ah, now I remember. They want to set a cookie before you can enter their products page.

Carl, I'm not sure P-H does flight control systems. My search yielded nothing in that regard, but I did find that www.chomerics.com, a division of Parker-Hannifin, makes EMI shields (another ongoing interest of mine).

Some basic info about P-H at

http://www.stockinfo.standardpoor.com/reg_ads/parker.htm

"Parker Hannifin Corporation (PH-NYSE) is a global leader in creating components and systems that control motion in a broad spectrum of uses. Parker has 1,400 product lines for hydraulic, pneumatic, and electromechanical applications in some 1,000 industrial and aerospace markets.

"Parkers 39,873 employees operate 190 manufacturing plants and 147 administrative and sales offices, company stores, and warehouses around the world. The Company has the largest distribution network in this field, with over 7,500 distributors serving nearly 400,000 customers worldwide. As detailed in its 1998 Annual Report, for the year ended June 30, Parkers sales were $4.6 billion, with a net income of $319.6 million, and a backlog of $1.65 billion."

And, the company must have a slew of lawyers, because it seems to show up in court often, as in this apparent tax court visit:

http://www.law.emory.edu/6circuit/mar98/98a0091p.06.html

Excerpt:

"Parker never notified any of the labor unions which represented its employees of the existence of the VEBA Trust, Parker's contribution to the VEBA Trust, or the existence of any reserves of the VEBA Trust.(5) Nor did Parker notify any of its employees or retirees except for those employees who were involved in the implementation of the VEBA Trust. Parker never disclosed the existence of the VEBA Trust or any reserves of the VEBA Trust on any of the summary plan descriptions which Parker provided to its employees to notify them of its pension and retirement plans."

BTW, there's nothing like court records for interesting research material. :)

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), February 18, 2000.