{"id":355495,"date":"2025-12-19T12:57:05","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T12:57:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/355495\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T12:57:05","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T12:57:05","slug":"former-nascar-driver-greg-biffle-was-reportedly-flying-to-famous-youtuber-when-plane-crash-happened","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/355495\/","title":{"rendered":"Former NASCAR driver Greg Biffle was reportedly flying to famous YouTuber when plane crash happened"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">STATESVILLE, N.C. (WBTV) &#8211; Former NASCAR driver Greg Biffle was on his way to spend the afternoon with a famous YouTuber when he and his family died in a plane crash Thursday in North Carolina, the content creator said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Garrett Mitchell &#8212; known online as \u201cCleetus McFarland\u201d &#8212; wrote on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/garrett.mitchell.927\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/garrett.mitchell.927\">Facebook<\/a> that Biffle, his wife and two kids were on the way to visit him when their Cessna C550 crashed shortly after takeoff at Statesville Regional Airport around 10:15 a.m. on Dec. 18.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cWe are devastated,\u201d Mitchell\u2019s Facebook post read in part. In another post, he called Thursday \u201cthe worst day ever.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Flight records showed Biffle\u2019s plane was headed to an airport in Sarasota, Fla. &#8212; which is only about 30 minutes from Bradenton, Fla., where Mitchell is based.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">It was not immediately clear why the crash happened.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Including Biffle, officials confirmed that seven people died.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">In the hours after the crash, Mitchell shared more than a dozen pictures of himself with Biffle on his personal and Cleetus McFarland Facebook <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/cleetusmcfarland\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/cleetusmcfarland\">pages<\/a>. The 19-time Cup Series winner had appeared in some of Mitchell\u2019s videos.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid mx-auto d-block\" alt=\"Former NASCAR driver Greg Biffle died after his plane crashed at Statesville Regional Airport...\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/SQNCZKOVH5BHDNVDPL4PQ2YFJA.jpg\" width=\"980\" height=\"665\" \/>Former NASCAR driver Greg Biffle died after his plane crashed at Statesville Regional Airport in N.C. on Dec. 18.(Ralph Lauer | AP)<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Many more paid tribute to Biffle as well.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Among them were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DSa5Y4ekU1M\/?img_index=1\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DSa5Y4ekU1M\/?img_index=1\">RFK Racing co-owners<\/a> Jack Roush and Brad Keselowski. Biffle drove the No. 16 car for the team, when it was then known as Roush Fenway Racing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cThe tragic accident involving Greg Biffle and his family today is incredibly heartbreaking,\u201d a statement from Roush said Thursday. \u201cI have lost a dear friend and partner in our NASCAR program. His contributions to our race team over the years are immeasurable.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Keselowski, too &#8212; who still races now &#8212; said he was \u201cheartbroken\u201d by the news.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cI had the privilege of racing alongside Greg for many years, and like so many in our sport, I gained deep respect for him not only as a champion on the racetrack, but as a competitor who helped define an era of NASCAR,\u201d Keselowski\u2019s statement read in part. \u201cHis impact on Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing runs deep, and his accomplishments helped lay a foundation we continue to build upon today.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has taken the lead in the investigation.<\/p>\n<p>Greg Biffle killed in plane crash<\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2025 WBTV. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STATESVILLE, N.C. (WBTV) &#8211; Former NASCAR driver Greg Biffle was on his way to spend the afternoon with&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":355496,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[81454,22365,153809,49,48,153814,153810,153811,46151,153815,21190,108430,29549,6973,6388,149379,1995,13635,20066,60371,5905,153817,2000,153816,16596,136341,9041,153812,26678,634,43461,44,22865,8338,60048,1164,153813,38332,41506,68846,82,153447,2939,3194,21519,13139,4718,93394],"class_list":["post-355495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-airplane","tag-airport","tag-biffle","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cessna","tag-cleetus","tag-cletus","tag-crash","tag-crashed","tag-dead","tag-die","tag-died","tag-driver","tag-florida","tag-flying","tag-former","tag-garrett","tag-going","tag-greg","tag-how","tag-how-many","tag-in","tag-iredell-county","tag-jet","tag-killed","tag-latest","tag-mcfarland","tag-mitchell","tag-nascar","tag-nc","tag-news","tag-north-carolina","tag-plane","tag-private","tag-race","tag-racer","tag-regional","tag-retired","tag-sarasota","tag-sports","tag-statesville","tag-update","tag-videos","tag-where","tag-why","tag-youtube","tag-youtuber"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355495\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}