Five months have passed since the Cessna Citation 550 registered to Greg Biffle went down at Statesville Regional Airport on December 18, 2025, killing all seven people on board, including Greg Biffle, his wife Cristina, their five-year-old son Ryder, and his 14-year-old daughter Emma Elizabeth, the only child he shared with ex-wife Nicole Lunders. The legal fallout has been building ever since. And now it has arrived at its most personal point yet.

Lunders has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Biffle’s estate, pilot Dennis Dutton’s estate, and GB Aviation Leasing, the company Biffle wholly owned and through which the aircraft was registered, alleging negligence in Emma’s death. The lawsuit is filed on behalf of Emma’s estate, with Lunders as its beneficiary, and joins an already crowded legal battlefield.

In April, the estates of Dennis Dutton and Jack Dutton had each filed $15 million wrongful death lawsuits against the Biffle estate, also centred on the argument that Biffle, as sole owner and officer of GB Aviation Leasing, bore responsibility for the aircraft’s safe operation. Combined with Lunders’ claim, the total litigation exposure attached to the Biffle estate from this single crash could reach between $25 million and $30 million.

And with the same foundation against Biffle estates as the Dutton filings, Lunders’ court filing contains quite a few other allegations.

• Start of “negligent conduct” before the plane began taxiing: One of the main allegations is that the flight was not being operated under the instrument flight rules (IFR) flight plan. The filings claim that although the flight plan was present, it was never activated.
• Pilot negligence: The court filings mention that Dennis Dutton could not achieve a successful start of the left engine, showcasing trouble with the aircraft even before it began taxiing. The filing claimed that the left engine only started after power was cross-fed from the right engine.
• Moreover, there was also an allegation of “illegal aviation practice” from Dutton, accusing him of “scud running.” This is a practice in which the pilots sometimes lower their altitudes to avoid clouds. However, it can prove to be dangerous because the aircraft can come in contact with unseen obstructions.
• It is also claimed that Greg Biffle noted some discrepancy between the left and right interstage turbine temperature indications, indicating that there was a difference in the power being supplied to both engines, and they were not behaving identically (which they should have been).
• Another one of the serious allegations mentioned that the pilot-in-command, Dennis Dutton, did not take advantage of the instrument landing system while approaching the runway to land. This could have helped with precise landing.
• The lawsuit further alleges that the crew should have aborted takeoff given the engine discrepancy, and that once the onboard generator came back online and instruments began functioning again, the crew should have remained airborne rather than pressing ahead with a landing.

These are only allegations right now, but there are some things to note. Based on the findings of the National Transportation Safety Board’s preliminary report released in January 2026, several mechanical and instrument malfunctions occurred during the flight. The pilot, Dennis Dutton, had complained that the left altitude indicator instrument, as well as several others on the same side, were malfunctioning. Investigators also found that the Garmin GTN-750 aviation system had failed to capture the flight data, including the airspeed and heading information.

The preliminary report also alluded to an issue involving a faulty thrust reverser indicator light during taxi. It should be noted, however, that investigators had established that the thrust reverser itself was working properly at the time of the accident.

There were also no indications of any engine or structural malfunctions before the collision. Investigators found that both engines were still operational when the aircraft crashed, and that the thrust levers were pushed forward.

In addition, the inquiry asked if the flight crew had the required qualifications. For Dennis Dutton’s type rating, there should have been a second-in-command in the cockpit who was qualified. However, his son Jack Dutton was seated at the co-pilot seat per some reports, and he only had a private pilot’s license.

Aviation safety consultant Jeff Guzzetti pointed fingers at the same, saying, “This airplane requires two trained pilots, and if things go wrong and you don’t have a trained pilot, then bad things can happen. The airplane might have been able to be landed safely if there were two qualified pilots up front.”

The NTSB further believed that the electrical failures and the instrument malfunctions probably impaired the crew’s perception of their aircraft’s positioning near Statesville Regional Airport.

It’s tough to say where the legal drama would head from here. However, this is far from what must be worrying Biffle’s family.

Suspected conspiracy emerges in Biffle’s home invasion

Back in January, shortly after the crash, Greg Biffle’s private residence was broken into. The thieves stole $30,000 in cash, some NASCAR memorabilia, and two Glock pistols. No immediate arrests were made following this, but more recently, a conspiracy seemed to be unfolding.

It was claimed that this house robbery was a planned inside job by people from Biffle’s inner circle. As per reports, “multiple conspirators” were involved in this, who had knowledge of Biffle’s accounts and stole “hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

“This fraud appears to have been a strategic and coordinated strike against all accounts through multiple states, which has resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars being stolen,” an Iredell County sheriff’s detective’s search warrant claimed.

It is currently not known who the conspirators were, but it certainly aroused suspicion. Following this, within a month, Nicole Lunders has now filed the lawsuit against Biffle’s and the pilot’s estate.