Greg Biffle in his 3M NASCAR uniform signing autographs for fans. Image: Ford Racing/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
The newest lawsuit over the Greg Biffle crash makes a claim no investigator has: that money had something to do with who sat in the right seat of the jet. That is a serious allegation, and it is only an allegation. The part of the case it rests on is a different matter, because that part is already in the federal file.
The estate of Craig Wadsworth, Biffle’s personal assistant and one of the seven people killed at Statesville Regional Airport on December 18, 2025, filed suit on October 16 in Iredell County. It names the estates of Biffle, pilot Dennis Dutton and his 20-year-old son Jack Dutton, plus GB Aviation Leasing LLC, the company that operated the Cessna. The complaint says Jack flew without required qualifications “at least in part” to avoid paying a professional co-pilot, and that GB Aviation held no air carrier certificate. It is the fourth wrongful-death suit tied to the crash.
Our read: the suit is strongest on what and weakest, so far, on why. And it can survive without the why.
The NTSB file is a seating chart
The National Transportation Safety Board’s investigation page and preliminary report on WPR26MA063 are blunt about who was in the cockpit. Dutton held an airline transport pilot certificate, but his CE-500 rating carried the limitation “Second in Command Required.” The jet was not his to fly alone. The right-seat occupant, Jack, was a private pilot with single-engine land and instrument ratings and 175.3 hours, all in single-engine airplanes as of November 29, 2025. The report says he was not qualified to act as second in command under 14 CFR 61.55.
That is a documented gap between the seat and the person in it. What the NTSB does not say, and is not built to say, is why the pairing existed. Investigators do not audit flight-department budgets or who negotiated whose fee. A cost-cutting motive is the kind of fact that only emerges in discovery: who staffed the airplane before, whether professional co-pilots were used on earlier trips, and who made the call that morning. Until someone produces that, it is a theory. The preliminary report is also preliminary, and the investigation remains open.
Motive still matters legally. In North Carolina the line between ordinary carelessness and the willful or wanton conduct that changes a case is where plaintiffs try to land, a point we walked through in our breakdown of the Biffle lawsuits and North Carolina fault law. “They saved money on safety” is a sentence written for exactly that purpose.
The certificate line is the weakest part
The allegation that GB Aviation held no air carrier certificate sounds ominous and describes the default. The NTSB lists the flight as a Part 91 personal flight and says the operator held no operating certificates. A private owner flying friends, family and staff does not need one. Charter and commercial operators do, and that is the regime with the stricter crew rules, which is why the allegation points at Part 91 itself more than at anything unusual about this flight. The live question is narrower and harder: whether the people in the front met the aircraft’s own requirements.
Why sue everybody
A passenger’s estate does not have to decide who to blame, and Wadsworth’s did not try. It named the owner, the pilot in command, the unqualified second pilot and the operating company. Under 14 CFR 91.3 the pilot in command is the final authority on the flight, so the Dutton side cannot easily point elsewhere. But the Dutton estates have their own suits against Biffle’s estate, filed in April, and Biffle’s side contends the Duttons were negligent. One set of facts is now being argued from several directions, and nothing public says who actually chose the crew.
That matters for racing beyond this one family. Plenty of owners, drivers and team executives fly Part 91, where the owner effectively sets the crew standard and no outside party checks the pairing before the wheels leave the ground. This is the case likely to show what that freedom costs when the standard is questioned afterward. For the earlier wave of litigation and the other incidents around the family, see our earlier coverage, and follow our NASCAR coverage for developments.
What to watch
First, the defendants’ responses. Whether the estates deny the co-pilot allegation, blame one another or move to dismiss will show where each side thinks it is exposed. Second, discovery: staffing history and who hired whom is where the cost theory lives or dies. Third, the NTSB’s final report, due 12 to 24 months after the accident. Under 49 U.S.C. § 1154(b), that report cannot be used as evidence in a civil damages suit, so the lawsuits will have to prove their own story.
Lead image: Greg Biffle in his 3M NASCAR uniform signing autographs for fans. Image: Ford Racing/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
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