Lawsuit alleges racial and gender discrimination led to an Air Force contractor's death
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On the night Stephanie Cosme died, her sister and brother said they received a curt explanation from a U.S. Air Force official who met them at the hospital: The civilian contractor was failing to follow protocol when she was hit by an aircraft's rotating propeller and killed.
The family would wait eight agonizing months to find out more about how the accident unfolded during relatively low-risk ground testing on a MQ-9A Reaper drone at Gray Butte Airfield in California on Sept. 7, 2023. They felt sure there was more to the story than Cosme, a 32-year-old testing engineer who worked for Air Force contractor Sumaria Systems, LLC, simply not following instructions.
A report from the U.S. Air Force Aircraft Accident Investigation Board eventually confirmed their instincts, finding that her trainer rushed the job and improperly instructed Cosme on how to take data readings from the drone, among other contributing factors.
But in a lawsuit filed last month against Sumaria, the family says they see a darker explanation. Citing witness testimony from the Air Force investigation, the family contends that Cosme's death was the culmination of a gender and racial discrimination campaign by the testing director, Derek Kirkendall, who they claim had a history of hostility against Hispanic employees at the company.
Saul Ewing, the law firm representing both the company and Kirkendall, said in a statement “the defendants deny any wrongdoing or liability whatsoever,” and that they will "address the allegations of the lawsuit in court through the legal process.”.
