Products Liability Law Daily Wrap Up, STATUTES OF LIMITATIONS AND REPOSE—AIRCRAFT AND WATERCRAFT—Tex. Sup. Ct.: Court grants helicopter manufacturer’s writ of mandamus petition, (Apr 30, 2026)

By Susan L. Smith, JD, MA

The Texas Supreme Court determined the lawsuit was barred by the General Aviation Revitalization Act’s provisions.

The Texas Supreme Court concluded that a lawsuit brought against helicopter manufacturers by the family of a pilot who was killed when the helicopter crashed is barred by the General Aviation Revitalization Act (GARA). The court found that the revisions the family identified to the preflight-check graphic, the left-side fuselage check, the transmission-oil instruction, and the combustion-case instruction have nothing to do with the part of the manual alleged to have caused the accident. The court found that the family’s theory of liability failed. Thus, the court conditionally granted Bell’s petition for writ of mandamus and directed the county court to grant Bell’s motion for summary judgment. The writ will issue only if the court does not do so (In re: Bell Helicopter Services, Inc., No. 24-0883 (Tex. Sup. Ct. Apr. 24, 2026)).

Background. The helicopter was delivered to Westwind Helicopters, Inc. in 1997. The decedent was one of Westwind’s pilots who transported workers to and from offshore oil platforms. On February 27, 2017, he flew a crew to an offshore platform in the Gulf of Mexico. After landing, he discovered that the left-side engine cowling—a hinged panel covering the engine compartment—had come loose. Two of the fasteners that held it in place were damaged. He reported the problem to Westwind. Westwind initially agreed to send a mechanic, but because no mechanic was readily available, he was directed to chance it coming in for repairs and told him to fly alone. During the flight, the loose cowling allegedly detached from the aircraft, struck the tail rotor, and sent the helicopter into an uncontrollable descent. The pilot died in the crash.

The family sued Bell and Westwind in October 2017. The family’s experts’ reports focused on the flight manual that has been revised periodically since it was first issued in 1996. None of the revisions had anything to do with the left-side engine cowling alleged to have caused the crash. The manual includes a preflight checklist that instructs pilots to confirm among other things, that the left-side Engine cowling is secured rather than any mechanical defect. The family contended that the Flight Manual was defective when it left Bell’s facilities because it lacked a warning that the helicopter should not be flown when the access door and/or engine cowling are not secured.

Bell moved for summary judgment based on GARA. The county court at law denied Bell’s summary judgment motion without explanation. Bell then sought mandamus relief in the court of appeals, which denied relief without a substantive opinion.

GARA. GARA provides that no civil action for damages for death or injury arising out of an accident involving a general aviation aircraft may be brought against the manufacturer more than 18 years after the manufacturer delivers the aircraft to its first purchaser. If, however, a manufacturer replaces or adds a new part, and that part is later alleged to have caused the accident, the clock runs from the date of the replacement or addition. The statute also provides that if a manufacturer replaces or adds a new part, a fresh 18-year period begins for that part but only if the part is alleged to have caused the accident. Further, GARA supersedes any state law to the extent that such law permits a civil action to be brought after the applicable limitation period for such civil action. Unless GARA’s -year clock was reset under the rolling provision, no civil action can be brought.

Court’s analysis. The court stated that unless GARA’s 18-year clock was reset under the rolling provision, no civil action may be brought. The court noted there was no dispute that the physical component that came loose and allegedly caused the crash was original to the aircraft. Instead, the family’s theory of liability rests on the flight manual’s preflight checklist contending that the checklist was deficient because, although it told pilots to confirm that the engine cowling was secured, it did not also warn them not to fly if the cowling was not secured. Because Bell revised the preflight checklist several times in the years before the accident, though never revising the cowling instruction, the family contends the 18-year clock was reset under GARA’s rolling provision. The family’s theory is that the preflight-check subsection as a whole was replaced by a new subsection that contained several revisions that still lacked adequate warning, thus, allegedly causing the accident. Thus, the family contends that the rolling provision applies and the repose period must be calculated from the latest revision of the manual, not the initial delivery of the aircraft.

The court disagreed, stating that if the family’s argument is correct that changing one sentence in the manual does not merely replace that sentence; it replaces the entire manual, or at least the entire section of the manual containing that sentence. The court stated that GARA requires identifying the specific component, system, subassembly, or other part that is both new and alleged to have caused the injury. It does not permit the plaintiff to point to a collection or category of parts, some of which are new and some other of which is alleged to have caused the injury. Congress did not simply say part; it listed component, system, subassembly, or other part—terms that reflect different levels of specificity in how machines are organized. Replacing one small part of a larger component or system does not replace the entire component or system containing the part. In other words, the court stated the rolling provision’s text leaves no room to argue that replacement of a few parts of a larger system starts the rolling limitation period anew for all parts in the larger system.

The court noted that the Ninth Circuit accepted the proposition that a revised flight manual could qualify as an aircraft part if the manufacturer substantively altered or deleted, a warning about the allegedly defective part from the manual within the last 18 years, and it is alleged that the revision or omission is the proximate cause of the accident, then GARA does not bar the action. But a revision to the manual does not implicate GARA’s rolling provision, unless the revised part is alleged to have caused the death, injury, or damage. Thus, revisions to unrelated parts of the manual do not trigger the rolling provision. The court stated that the principle that emerges from Ninth circuit and the other cases it reviewed is consistent, replacing some parts or components of a system does not restart the repose period for the entire system. Under this approach, which is firmly grounded in both the text of GARA and the cases applying it, the family’s theory of liability fails. The court stated that the flight manual is not a single undifferentiated unit. It is organized into sections, which are divided into subsections, one of which is the preflight-check subsection, which is itself divided into different areas of the aircraft, different subareas, and ultimately into individual instructions.

The court found that the revisions the family identified to the preflight-check graphic, the left-side fuselage check, the transmission-oil instruction, and the combustion-case instruction have nothing to do with the part of the manual alleged to have caused the accident. The part that is related, the engine-cowling instruction, was never revised. Revising other parts of the preflight-check subsection does not restart the clock for the engine-cowling instruction any more than replacing one engine bolt restarts the clock for an accident caused by another bolt elsewhere in the engine. The court stated that the family must identify a new part that is alleged to have caused the accident. The engine cowling instruction is alleged to have caused the accident, but it is not new. The revised instructions are new, but they are not alleged to have caused anything. The rolling provision does not permit a plaintiff to cobble together its claim in this way. The rolling provision requires a plaintiff to identify a specific part that is both new and alleged to have caused the harm. Thus, the court concluded that the 18-year repose period bars the family’s claims. The 18-year clock began when Bell delivered the helicopter to its first purchased in 1997. The accident happened twenty years later in 2017. The court stated that nothing alleged to have happened in the interim triggered the rolling provision. Therefore, the court concluded that Bell was entitled to summary judgment.

Mandamus. The court explained that mandamus is generally unavailable when a trial court denies summary judgment, however, mandamus review of summary judgment decisions may, in exceptional cases, be essential to preserve important substantive and procedural rights from impairment or loss and to spare private parties and the public the time and money utterly wasted enduring eventual reversal of improperly conducted proceedings. The court concluded that this is such a case. The family points out that GARA’s operative provision, limiting when an action may be brought, uses language found in many conventional statutes of limitation and that Congress may have simply intended to erect a bar to a plaintiff’s ultimate recovery, not a right of the defendant to avoid litigation altogether.

The court noted that GARA’s preemption clause offers an additional counterpoint.

The statute supersedes any state law to the extent that such law permits a civil action to be brought after the applicable limitation period. The presumption against preemption, rooted in respect for the states as independent sovereigns, assumes that Congress does not cavalierly pre-empt state laws. The court stated that a party wrongly forced to defend an action that Congress has said may not be brought and that no state law may permit to be brought has suffered an impairment or loss of its federal rights that generally cannot be remedied by an appeal following trial and judgment in a case no Texas court should have entertained in the first place. Thus, the court found that Bell lacks an adequate remedy by appeal under these circumstances. That conclusion, coupled with the clear abuse of discretion described, makes mandamus relief appropriate in this case to correct the improper denial of summary judgment.

The case is No. 24-0883.

Judge: Blacklock, J.

Attorneys: Natasha Breaux (Haynes and Boone, LLP) for Bell Helicopter Services Inc. and Bell Helicopter Textron Inc. Jason A. Itkin (Arnold & Itkin, LLP) for Bárbara Kawamura.

Companies: Bell Helicopter Services Inc.; Bell Helicopter Textron Inc.

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