How can the media say
The answer is...
Yeah, the media say what they say. Never let the facts get in the way of a good story etc... But in this instance "Investigators determined that the crash was caused by a defective carburetor" is probably not far off from what the plaintiff attorney said to the jury and possibly the media.
Of course since NTSB findings are specifically *
excluded by statute from being used as evidence in civil lawsuits, the term "investigators" doesn't actually refer to the NTSB. In many civil suits, that term means people hired by the plaintiff's attorney to "investigate" the circumstances of the event connected to the cause of action and then testify as expert witnesses. So the statement isn't necessarily
entirely untrue. And some evidence collected in the course of the NTSB investigation may remain available to plaintiff's "investigators" to draw their own conclusions from. That's just a glimpse of how our legal system operates in aviation accident civil suits. There's much more to justify the statement attributed to Shakespeare regarding lawyers!
*From
NTSB:
"The General Counsel ensures NTSB activities are in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations, and enforces the statutory prohibitions against the use of certain Board products in civil litigation."
Note: A number of federal statutes appear to apply in various different circumstances and I'm not a lawyer.
westhawk