{"id":941295,"date":"2026-10-21T21:52:21","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T21:52:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/941295\/"},"modified":"2026-10-21T21:52:21","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T21:52:21","slug":"family-of-passenger-in-greg-biffle-plane-crash-alleges-nascar-driver-hired-unqualified-pilot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/941295\/","title":{"rendered":"Family of passenger in Greg Biffle plane crash alleges NASCAR driver hired unqualified pilot"},"content":{"rendered":"

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV<\/a>\/Gray News) – The personal assistant and longtime friend of NASCAR driver Greg Biffle has filed a wrongful-death lawsuit alleging Biffle hired an unqualified flight crew to save costs.<\/p>\n

Greg Biffle\u2019s estate is facing four major wrongful death lawsuits, totaling $40 million in claims. <\/p>\n

Biffle and his longtime friend Craig Wadsworth were two of seven people killed in the tragic plane crash<\/a> in Statesville in late December 2025.<\/p>\n

Wadsworth\u2019s estate filed the lawsuit last Friday in Iredell County against the estates of Greg Biffle, pilot Dennis Dutton, Dutton\u2019s 20-year-old son Jack Dutton, and GB Aviation Leasing, a company owned by Biffle.<\/p>\n

The suit claims Biffle and pilot Dennis Dutton knew a qualified second co-pilot was required to fly the plane, but allowed the pilot\u2019s 20-year-old son, Jack Dutton, to fly without proper qualifications.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit continued, stating Biffle was motivated \u201cat least in part, by the desire to avoid the expense\u201d of a professional co-pilot, citing a conversation in which Dennis Dutton told Biffle he had found someone to act as co-pilot and it would be \u201ccheap.\u201d<\/p>\n

The estate alleges Biffle was willfully negligent, choosing personal convenience, cost savings and an opportunity to give \u201can inexperienced airman\u201d cockpit experience over stopping the flight or hiring someone more experienced \u2014 leading to Wadsworth\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

The suit also names GB Aviation Leasing LLC, a private aviation company owned by Biffle, which operated the aircraft and leased the hangar space. <\/p>\n

The company allegedly held no air carrier certificate \u2014 an FAA authorization required to operate as a commercial charter airline.<\/p>\n

Additionally, Wadsworth\u2019s estate claims Biffle was negligent both as Dutton\u2019s boss and as owner and manager of the company that authorized the crew.<\/p>\n

Dennis Dutton and Jack Dutton were also named for negligence as pilot in command and as acting crewman.<\/p>\n

Wadsworth\u2019s family is seeking at least $25,000, plus court costs and interest, from the Dutton estates, Biffle estate and GB Aviation.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 WBTV via Gray Local Media, Inc. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV\/Gray News) – The personal assistant and longtime friend of NASCAR driver Greg Biffle has filed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":941296,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,153442,322408,322407,322409,64735,322410,322401,322402,322403,153691,322400,322399,322398,322411,634,174738,322405,322404,322406,82],"class_list":["post-941295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-craig-wadsworth","tag-craig-wadsworth-greg-biffle","tag-craig-wadsworth-greg-biffle-plane-crash-lawsuit","tag-craig-wadsworth-greg-biffle-wrongful-death-lawsuit","tag-greg-biffle","tag-greg-biffle-estate","tag-greg-biffle-hired-unqualified-pilot","tag-greg-biffle-hired-unqualified-pilot-plane-crash","tag-greg-biffle-hired-unqualified-pilot-plane-crash-lawsuit","tag-greg-biffle-plane-crash","tag-greg-biffle-plane-crash-unqualified-pilot","tag-greg-biffle-wrongful-death-lawsuit","tag-greg-biffle-wrongful-death-suit","tag-how-much-was-greg-biffle-worth","tag-nascar","tag-nascar-driver-greg-biffle","tag-nascar-driver-greg-biffle-being-sued","tag-nascar-driver-greg-biffle-death","tag-nascar-driver-greg-biffle-plane-crash-lawsuit","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941295","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=941295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941295\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/941296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=941295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=941295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=941295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}