I understand the plaintiff's argument to be, if this was "an accident waiting to happen", it was negligent/reckless of the airline to expose passengers to that risk.
The argument would rely upon the defendant knowing or ought to have known that the accident was waiting to happen. The FAA had the database, but failed to act upon the accumulation of near miss reports.
It's more difficult to argue that the airlines should have been doing FAA's job for them.