Medley v. United States

OPINION AND ORDER

AGUILAR, District Judge.

These three consolidated actions arise out of two separate aircraft crashes in the Sierra Nevada mountain range. In April of 1978, Harold C. Medley was piloting his Beechcraft Sundowner C-23 aircraft, with his wife as passenger, from San Jose, California, to an intended destination in Death Valley, California. As the plane was crossing the Sierras, “rapidly rising terrain which was beyond the performance level of the aircraft,” (Memorandum in Support of Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment, p. 1), was suddenly encountered and the plane crashed.…