Helicopter suit blames Airbus

FEDERAL OFFICIALS warned chopper manufacturer Airbus that its helicopters were defective years before a fatal crash in the East River earlier this month, according to new legal filings.

The National Transportation Safety Board told the company in October 2010 that the emergency fuel cutoff levers in their helicopters could be activated by accident, the parents of Trevor Cadigan allege in an amended lawsuit Wednesday.

The chopper’s pilot, Richard Vance, told NTSB investigators that tangled harness strap activated the fuel cutoff lever. The March 11 crash killed all five passengers.

Airbus, the helicopter’s maker, “knew from other crashes and incidents . . . that the levers on its helicopters could be easily and inadvertently moved” out of their settings, the Cadigans allege.

The NTSB issued its warning about that model chopper after a deadly crash in Alaska in 2008.

Airbus did not immediately return a message seeking comment. FRIENDS AND FAMILY raised a glass Wednesday night to a local firefighting soldier who died in a military helicopter crashed in Western Iraq.

Those who knew Christopher (Tripp) Zanetis said he was as hard to pin down as he was to define. He was a member of the New York National Guard and an FDNY fire marshal, but that was just scratching the surface.

Zanetis, 37, a fitness trainer, played piano, studied law and was active in LGBT groups associated with the FDNY and the National Bar Association.

“Tripp was absolutely the smartest and most talented person I think I ever met,” said retired FDNY Battalion Chief Richard Portello.

“He was good at everything he did. If he ran for President, I would not have been surprised.”

Portello, one of the first firefighters to come out on the job as