I don't know what the age of the burn victim was. If he was a healthy man in his late 20s, and survived the massive external burns, he's likely going to live for 50-ish more years. He's also going to have huge ongoing medical expenses during that lifetime. Given the state of the art medical coverage, and some matter of defensive medicine, his lifetime costs could be in the multiple tens of millions. Not that the entire pot of the settlement is his and his alone.
Further, the punitive damages in the US when the plaintiff goes court shopping could be huge. And it would seem, with little research on my part that punitive award was going to be both justified and ergo, massive. Maybe that settlement was considered reasonable in the light of day, and the facts at hand.
One thing I will join in condemning is the cost to the aviation community due to other unjust liability settlements. Guy in NJ flies a Bonanza CFIT in a thunderstorm and his family is awarded $7 mil? WTF? guy in AZ rips the wing off a Piper Seneca during OEN training and the family gets $22 mil? Awards like this where pilot error is the proximate cause, and the fact that the Bonanza wasn't equipped with a strikefinder upgrade are just indefensible. The stupidity of the jury in the face of tragic consequence is our own failing, and I have no apology for it.