The manufacturer of an airplane engine that allegedly failed midflight can't escape paying a $2.7 million verdict to the widow of one of the passengers killed in the resulting fatal crash, a federal judge has ruled.

U.S. District Judge J. Curtis Joyner of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania denied Continental Motors Inc.'s request to toss the verdict. Continental manufactured the engine in the Cessna T210L that crashed and killed the pilot and two U.S. Forest Service surveyors aboard.

The lawsuit brought by Elizabeth Snider and the estate of her husband, surveyor Daniel Snider, alleges that Continental negligently manufactured a replacement cylinder put in the engine six years before the accident. Continental claimed the jury's award couldn't be justified because there was no way to prove that it manufactured the component that caused the accident.