Bell 505 Jet X Ranger. (Photo: Shutterstock.com)

A wrongful death suit filed in Dallas over a helicopter crash that occurred last year in Kenya—killing four Americans, including a father and his two children, plus the pilot—claims that defects caused the almost new aircraft to go down.

The suit was filed Wednesday in Dallas County Court on behalf of the estate of David Baker and his minor children, identified only as A.B. and H.B.

Fort Worth-based Bell Textron Inc., maker of the Bell 505X helicopter that the four decedents, including the pilot, were on when it crashed approximately 3,000 feet from its departure site across a crater, is named a defendant. Other defendants are Safran USA Inc. and Safran Helicopter Engines USA, of Austin.

Bell Textron is accused of not meeting minimum Federal Aviation Administration requirements for the Bell 505X, including a defective design and engine, which the suit contends caused the deadly crash March 3, 2019.

"The subject aircraft was not designed to provide enough clearance between the rotor blades and the other helicopter structures," the suit contends. "Upon information and belief, Bell Textron falsely misled the FAA in its testing and certification process and were otherwise aware of this catastrophic risk and consciously chose to disregard it."

The suit asserts survival claims arising from the death of Baker and his two children, who before the crash lived in Fresno, California, according to the suit.

Baker is represented by James Beasley Jr. of  The Beasley Firm in Philadelphia and Charla Aldous of Aldous Walker in Dallas. Neither could be reached for comment Thursday.

Calls to Bell Textron and Safran weren't immediately returned Thursday.

"While the FAA only prescribes minimum airworthiness design specifications (which are inadequate themselves), this helicopter never even met those standards," the suit alleges.

The Bell 505X, known as the "Jet Ranger X," was a brand-new helicopter put out by Bell Textron, and was one of two helicopters that landed on Central Island of Lake Turkana, Kenya, on the date of the crash.

The aircraft was equipped with an Arrius 2R engine and FADEC (full authority digital engine control) system. At some point during the take-off, according to the complaint, the tail rotor contacted the helicopter's tail boom, and it lost function, causing the helicopter to spin out of control.

The Bell 505X was spinning so rapidly that by the time it crossed the crater, Baker and the four other victims were thrown from the helicopter before it crashed, according to the complaint.

The suit alleges the Safran engine "began to overspeed"—the FADEC system could no longer sense problems, and the pilot couldn't control the FADEC's power, preventing him from being able to safely perform any emergency maneuvers or procedures once the emergency was recognized.

The overspeed, the suits contends, "occurred well beyond the helicopter engine's limits," causing its "turbine blades to spin so fast that they tore off their root," and "the main rotor severed its own tail boom (which connects to the verticalstabilizer and tailrotor) on at least two separate occasions" as the plane spun out of control.

"During this horrific sequence of events, Mr. Baker and the other occupants suffered immeasurable fear of impending death, pain, suffering, mental anguish and emotional distress, before ultimately being killed," read the suit.

It claims strict liability on Bell Textron's part, as the company that designed, manufactured and sold the Bell 505X in Texas.

The suit contends the Bell 505X "was defectively designed and marketed such that it was unreasonably dangerous."

The complaint quotes FAA standards—"There must be enough clearance between the rotor blades and other parts of the structure to prevent the blades from striking any part of the structure during any operating condition"—and claims the helicopter that crashed "was not designed to provide enough clearance between the rotor blades and the other helicopter structures."

The suit also alleges negligence against Bell Textron.

There are also counts of strict liability against the Safran defendants for defective design, and for negligence.

"The Safran defendants' negligence set forth above and herein was a substantial factor in bringing about the death of David Baker," the suit claims. "Without Safran defendants' negligence, David Baker would not have suffered his catastrophic injuries and death."