Qualla: 2025 North Carolina Cessna Citation II Crash

2025 North Carolina Cessna Citation II Crash: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit ZLEA, CC BY-SA 4.0. On the morning of December 18, 2025, a Cessna 550 Citation II business jet, tail number N257BW, was returning to Statesville Regional Airport in north-central North Carolina. The clouds were low. The rain was light. Visibility was less than three miles. Aboard the airplane were seven people: retired NASCAR Cup Series driver Greg Biffle, his wife Cristina, their daughter Emma and son Ryder, family friend Craig Wadsworth, pilot Dennis Dutton, and Dutton's son Jack. Between 10:15 and 10:20 a.m. local time, the airplane struck approach lighting short of the runway, then trees, then came to rest in the runway overrun area. The fuselage was largely consumed by fire. There were no survivors.

Image: ZLEA | CC BY-SA 4.0

2025 North Carolina Cessna Citation II Crash: The Aircraft and the Field

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit ZLEA, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Citation II was a 1981 airframe owned by GB Aviation Leasing LLC, a company controlled by Greg Biffle. The maximum altitude the airplane reached during the accident sequence was 4,300 feet. Statesville Regional Airport, about 45 miles north of Charlotte, is a small regional f...

Image: ZLEA | CC BY-SA 4.0

2025 North Carolina Cessna Citation II Crash: The Preliminary Report

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit ZLEA, CC BY-SA 4.0. The National Transportation Safety Board released its preliminary report on January 30, 2026. The Citation 550 was not equipped with a flight data recorder, so investigators reconstructed the sequence from the cockpit voice recorder and from data captured by the airplane's Garmin...

Image: ZLEA | CC BY-SA 4.0

2025 North Carolina Cessna Citation II Crash: The Garmin Goes Dark

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit ZLEA, CC BY-SA 4.0. On the way back to the airport, the captain reported problems with the Garmin's altimeter. The display then stopped recording altitude data, and a short time later stopped recording heading data as well. The pilot-passenger took the controls momentarily before the captain resumed...

Image: ZLEA | CC BY-SA 4.0

2025 North Carolina Cessna Citation II Crash: The People Aboard

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit ZLEA, CC BY-SA 4.0. The investigation will run for another year, maybe two. The NTSB found no evidence of structural failure. The engines remained attached to the airframe. Fan-blade damage was consistent with the engines turning at impact, not seized. What the agency has documented so far is a sequ...

Image: ZLEA | CC BY-SA 4.0