Former NASCAR driver Greg Biffle’s wife Cristina texted her mother shortly before the plane they were on crashed in North Carolina on Thursday.
The Biffles were among seven people on the Cessna Citation that crashed as it was attempting to land shortly after takeoff from Statesville Regional Airport. All seven on board were killed including Greg’s 14-year old daughter Emma, Greg and Cristina’s 5-year-old son Ryder, Dennis and Jack Dutton, and Craig Wadsworth.
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Cathy Grossu told CBS news that Cristina texted her “We’re in trouble, emergency landing” after the plane took off. Then Grossu got an alert from Cristina’s phone.
Cathy Grossu said she and her daughter were texting “all day long,” including during the flight.
“Then she said something like ‘We’re in trouble, emergency landing.’ And I texted back, ‘What’s wrong with the plane?’” Grossu told CBS News. “Then the next thing was [the SOS alert] that you get from your automatic Apple phones when you have an accident or something. And so I knew that something was wrong.”
Grossu called the airport. She said she was told there was a fire.
“That’s when we knew that they crashed,” Grossu said.
The NTSB has officially begun its investigation into the crash and said Friday that the black box from the plane has been recovered. A preliminary report from the investigation could be complete in 30 days. The plane was owned by Biffle’s company GB Aviation Leasing LLC.
NTSB board member Michael Graham said at a news conference Friday that it’s still unclear who was flying the plane. Both Dennis Dutton and Biffle were certified to fly the plane while Dutton’s son Jack was classified to fly single engine aircraft.
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The plane crashed just short of the runway at Statesville Regional after it turned around upon takeoff. The plane hit trees, two light stanchions and the airport’s perimeter fence before it came to a stop.
Biffle, 55, won 19 Cup Series races over a career that spanned two decades. He finished second in the points standings in 2005 and is one of two drivers to have both an Xfinity Series championship and a Truck Series championship. Biffle last raced full-time in NASCAR’s top series in 2016 and got his last NASCAR national series win in 2019 when he won a Truck Series race.
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