KING COUNTY, Wash. — The widow of an aerospace engineer killed in a plane crash in November 2022 is suing the companies involved in manufacturing the aircraft after its right wing fell off mid-flight.
On the morning of Nov. 18, 2022, 33-year-old Nathan Precup and three other people were killed when a Cessna 208B EX Caravan, on lease to Raisbeck Engineers, crashed in a field and then caught on fire near Harvey Airfield in Snohomish County.
Investigation revealed that the plane’s right wing fell off mid-air and “plummeted to the ground where it suffered substantial damage and then caught fire,” according to the lawsuit. All four people on board died in the crash.
The right wing was found about 200 yards away from the fuselage, which is the main body of the plane, according to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
The flight was part of testing the plane’s center-of-gravity stall characteristics and collecting aircraft performance data.
The wrongful death and product defect lawsuit, filed by Precup’s wife, Danielle Martin, in King County Superior Court, alleges that the aircraft was “not reasonably safe in design." It names Textron, Ace Aviation, Mistequay Group and Raisbeck Engineering as defendants.
It questions the aircraft's integrity and aims to hold Textron Aviation — Cessna's parent company — responsible for flaws the lawsuit claims led to their deaths.
“A wing should not normally fall off midflight of an airplane. When that happens, we assume that something went wrong, either in the manufacture or the maintenance of the airplane," said attorney Ari Friedman, representing Precup’s widow and partner at Wisner Baum. "Once we get access to the wreckage, we can start discovery. Learning the facts of what exactly happened, and we will be able to drill down and figure out where the fault was in the wing."
KING 5 has reached out to Textron Aviation for comment. Raisbeck Engineering said it does not comment about ongoing investigations.
According to the lawsuit, the manufacturing companies failed to design an aircraft that would not fall apart mid-flight and “failed to meet the foregoing responsibilities when they designed and constructed this unairworthy aircraft.”
The four people who died in the crash include David Newton, 67, of Wichita, Kansas; Nathan Precup, 33, of Seattle; Nate Lachendro, 49, of Gig Harbor; and Scott Brenneman, 52, of Roy.
The group consisted of two test pilots, a flight test director and an instrumental engineer. All of the men worked for Raisbeck, which is an aircraft modification company.
Precup’s widow is trying to cope with his loss and hoping the newly filed lawsuit will bring some answers.
“She's a teacher; they were newlyweds, really only being married within two years before the crash. Hopefully, we can help be a part of that healing and recovery process to give her some closure about what happened so she can move forward,” Friedman said.
“At the end of the day, we want to make sure that these individuals, the four individuals receive justice and that flying is made safer for everyone else who might be in one of these planes at any time in the future,” Friedman said.