On October 20, 1987, an A-7D [FN1] Corsair II light attack aircraft was en route from Pittsburgh to Nellis AFB, Nevada w/a refueling stop planned at Tinker AFB, Oklahoma City. About 15 miles southwest of Indianapolis International Airport (IAP), the jet lost power. Pilot 1/11

Maj Bruce Teagarden radioed his emergency. IAP’s tower routed him to a runway, but Indy was overcast. The A-7D dropped from the clouds already half-way down that runway. The pilot tried for another runway, but an A-7 drops more than it glides. He’d lost too much altitude. 2/11

Teagarden ejected, landed in a parking lot, and suffered minor injuries. The A-7D crashed into the lobby of the Ramada Inn, killing nine people almost instantly. A few days later, a tenth person died from burns he suffered. The crash was avoidable. 3/11

1) DoD knew for years about a flaw that caused the engine failure. Cost-benefit analysis guided DoD: an A-7 would be pulled for repairs only as the part neared failure, and a quick test was required after each sortie. An A-7 could not fly after 3 sorties without that test. 4/11

2) Pilots are not supposed to try to land flamed-out jets in densely populated areas. An air crash expert told me, “I knew that pilot was from Nellis.” One pilot bet his buddies he could pick a jack rabbit off a ridge line with his wingtip. The rabbit won the bet. 5/11

Apparently, the Government thought the pilot did something correct. The Major was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel.
I was a second year law student when the crash occurred. The firm I clerked for [FN2] was hired to represent the four of the wrongful death cases. 6/11

No one killed or injured had any connection with Nellis AFB or the jet that, literally, fell from the sky and killed them. For several people who were killed, under Indiana law at the time, no damages, beyond costs of burial and administration of estate, were available. 7/11

The focus of this & the next couple of blogs will look at the Ramada Inn crash from an angle a bit different: as a question of what to do in choice of law, what used to be called conflicts. A parallel is: what law attaches to a lawsuit when A, standing in State X fires a gun 8/11

& hits B who is standing in State Y where Y allows no damages to B. In the Ramada Inn case, the firm’s senior partner, Harry Wilson, told me to find damages in the three cases of adults with neither spouse nor issue. That’s what I did. 9/11

Footnotes:
FN1. The A-7D is the U.S. Air Force version of the Corsair. “LTV A-7D Corsair II,” Nat’l Museum of the United States Air Force, accessed 10/18/26. The A-7E is the U.S. Navy version. “A-7E, Corsair II,” Nat’l Naval Aviation Museum, accessed 10/18/26. 10/11

FN2. Wilson & Kehoe at the time of the crash, later Wilson, Kehoe and Winingham, 2859 North Meridian Street, Indianapolis. Harry passed away in 2002. 11/11