By JOSH FUNK AP Transportation Writer
Retired NASCAR driver Greg Biffle was not flying his own jet when it crashed last month, killing him and six others, according to a Friday report from federal safety officials who also concluded that while an experienced pilot was at the controls, no one else on board was qualified to be the required copilot.
The preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board said that Biffle and the retired airline pilot at the controls, Dennis Dutton, and his son Jack, who were all licensed pilots, noticed problems with gauges malfunctioning on the Cessna C550 before it crashed while trying to return to the Statesville Regional Airport in North Carolina.
The plane erupted into a large fire when it hit the ground about a third of a mile (550 meters) from the airport’s runway.
The NTSB made clear that Jack Dutton was sitting in the copilot seat. Neither Jack Dutton nor Biffle had the right endorsement on their pilot’s licenses to serve as a copilot on that plane. Aviation safety consultant Jeff Guzzetti, who used to investigate crashes for both the NTSB and Federal Aviation Administration, said he believes the lack of an experienced copilot may have been a key factor in the crash.
“This airplane requires two trained pilots, and if things go wrong and you don’t have a trained pilot, then bad things can happen,” Guzzetti said. “The airplane might have been able to be landed safely if there were two qualified pilots up front.”
The report said that a thrust reverser indicator light wasn’t working before takeoff, but after the plane got into the air, the pilot’s altimeter and some other instruments weren’t working.
The nature of the problems with the plane isn’t clear at this stage in the investigation, partly because the cockpit voice recorder cut out at times and NTSB experts have only just begun to dig into what caused the crash. Over the radio, Jack Dutton announced, “we’re having some problems here” and the cockpit recorder captured part of the conversation between the three pilots about the issues with the plane.
But the report indicates that the pilots were able to resolve the problems with the gauges before they tried to land back at the airport. It’s not clear why the plane came in so low and slow.
Biffle’s wife, Cristina, and children Ryder, 5, and Emma, 14, were killed in the crash along with his friend, Craig Wadsworth.
Biffle, 55, won more than 50 races across NASCAR’s three circuits, including 19 at the Cup Series level. He also won the Trucks Series championship in 2000 and the Xfinity Series title in 2002.
In 2024, Biffle was honored for his humanitarian efforts after Hurricane Helene struck the U.S., even using his personal helicopter to deliver aid to flooded, remote western North Carolina.
Hundreds of people in the NASCAR community gathered at an arena in Charlotte earlier this month to honor Biffle at a public memorial service.
The jet had departed Statesville Regional Airport, about 45 miles (72 kilometers) north of Charlotte about 10 minutes before it crashed while trying to return and land. Every indication is that the plane needed to land quickly because of the problems, so it wouldn’t have been a good option to fly to Charlotte.
The plane’s speed and altitude fluctuated significantly during the brief flight. At one point, the plane quickly soared from 1,800 feet (550 meters) up to 4,000 feet (1,220 meters) before descending again. Just before the crash, it was only a couple of hundred feet off the ground.