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.
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.”
The Air Force report, released in April, does not cite racial or gender discrimination as a contributing factor to Cosme’s death. But the family’s lawyers, Justin Green and Debra Katz, say they are basing their allegations on witness testimony from the Air Force investigation showing that Kirkendall deliberately isolated Cosme on the day of her death, assigned her to dangerous tasks that kept her away from the rest of the team and failed to inform the ground crew of her role. The lawsuit also says Kirkendall, who is named as a defendant in the lawsuit, disparaged her using anti-Hispanic tropes, describing her as “lazy.”
“Every night I would go to bed and I would look at her picture and I was like, ‘What happened? Did you get distracted? Did you trip?’” said her sister, Cassaundra Cosme. “The not knowing was terrible.”
Al Zaydani and his son were taken captive during Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7, 2023, among 250 hostages snatched by the militant group during its cross-border raid.
Israel believes a third of the remaining 100 hostages are dead.
The body’s recovery comes as Israel and Hamas are considering a ceasefire deal that would free the hostages and halt the fighting in Gaza.