A private business jet crashed Thursday morning at Statesville Regional Airport in North Carolina killing seven people on board, including retired NASCAR driver Greg Biffle, his wife, their two children, and three family friends. The Cessna Citation 550, registered to a company tied to Biffle, departed from Statesville and was attempting to return to the airport when it crashed and erupted into flames.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) have opened a joint investigation into the cause of the crash, which occurred shortly after takeoff amid cloudy and potentially adverse weather conditions. Officials have not yet released a probable cause, and investigators will review flight data, maintenance records, weather reports, and other evidence as part of a comprehensive inquiry that may take months to complete.
With aviation tragedies of this magnitude, legal questions often follow as families and survivors seek answers about accountability and liability. Pablo Rojas, an aviation attorney with Miami-based litigation firm Podhurst Orseck, said early indications, including the aircraft’s attempted return to the airport, are a key focus for investigators.
“When you see a plane attempting to return shortly after takeoff, that’s something investigators look at very closely,” Rojas said in an interview with WCNC Charlotte. “It can suggest the pilot recognized an abnormal condition early on, whether related to weather, mechanical performance, or instrumentation. Those early decisions and conditions often become critical pieces of the investigation.”
Preliminary information suggests that rapidly changing weather conditions may have influenced the pilot’s decision to return to the airport. In crashes like this, investigators typically focus on the interaction of three core factors: the pilot, the aircraft, and the weather, explained aviation attorney Zach Gorwitz, also with Podhurst Orseck.
“All three elements interact in different ways,” Gorwitz told WCCB Charlotte. “Investigators will examine how the aircraft responded to the environment, how the pilot responded to the aircraft, and how the aircraft responded to the pilot’s inputs.”
Understanding how those factors converged will be central to determining what went wrong and whether the accident resulted from human error, mechanical issues, environmental conditions, or a combination of all three.
The NTSB’s investigation will identify probable cause and contributing factors, though experts caution that the process can take many months, and sometimes more than a year, to complete. As the inquiry unfolds, aviation and legal professionals will continue monitoring developments to help affected families understand the findings and any potential next steps once more facts are known.
