North Yorkshire aircraft company Slingsby Aviation may appeal after a US jury decided that one of its aircraft in which a cadet died was defective.

The parents of US Air Force cadet Pace Weber - killed when his T-3A Firefly trainer aircraft crashed in 1997 - were awarded £2.74 million damages against Slingsby, based at Kirkbymoorside, North Yorkshire.

The jury in Miami found the design of the plane was "defective and unreasonably dangerous at the time Slingsby sold it to the US Air Force."

The verdict comes as a major blow to Slingsby, which employs 120 people.

Although insurance may cover the damages pay-out costs, the publicity could be damaging to hopes of future contracts - particularly with a second trial over another fatal T-3A crash due to begin in the same Miami courtroom in two weeks time.

Slingsby managing director Jeff Bevan was unable to comment today, other than to say that an appeal may be lodged against the jury's decision. Parent company Cobham also declined to comment.

Ryedale MP John Greenway said the jury's decision flew in the face of both the RAF and the US Air Force's conclusions about the Firefly.

He said American courts were notorious for awarding damages if there was the "slightest whiff there might be a problem."

He hoped an appeal would be successful; otherwise the decision would come as a "hammer-blow".

Pace, 20, was between his junior and senior years at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, when he died.

In closing arguments earlier this week, a lawyer for Slingsby criticised the instructor and a now-defunct US Air Force policy in which veteran jet pilots trained cadets in a single-engine plane capable of aerobatics.

He contended Captain Glen Comeaux, Pace Weber's instructor, was suffering from fatigue and frustration before both were killed in the crash on June 25, 1997.

But the Weber family cited the model's record of 294 fuel vapour locks and 66 engine failures, including nine in the air, and claimed a defective fuel pump was to blame for the plane's nearly flat fall from an altitude of about 800 feet.

Updated: 12:15 Friday, February 16, 2001