Your family just survived something no one should survive
The first thing to say is the hardest thing. A NetJets Cessna Citation Latitude came down on Loop 20 in Laredo on the night of June 16, 2026. One of the six people on board did not make it. The five who did are being treated for what we do not yet know the full measure of. The plane hit a moving car on the highway, scattered debris across every lane, and was on fire when two bystanders — one with a sledgehammer, one with a shovel — broke the cockpit glass to pull people out. The pilot had reported a mechanical issue to the Laredo tower. The tower lost contact. Then the plane came down.
If you are reading this at 2 a.m. from a hospital waiting room, from a kitchen table where the phone keeps ringing, or from a hotel room in Laredo you did not plan to be in, you do not need a marketing page. You need someone who knows what happens in the next thirty days, and what you do and do not say, and where the evidence is right now, and who controls it, and how fast it is disappearing.
That is what this page is. We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC — and we represent people whose lives just got split into before and after. Ralph Manginello has spent 27+ years in courtrooms on cases like this. Lupe Peña, who used to defend aviation claims for a living before he switched sides, is on our team. The call is free, the case costs you nothing unless we win, and we serve your family in English or in Spanish. That is the last paragraph you will read; now the first.
What happened on Loop 20 on the night of June 16, 2026
A NetJets-operated Cessna Citation Latitude departed San José del Cabo, Mexico, around 6:18 p.m. local time, headed for Austin, Texas, according to FlightRadar24 data reported in news coverage of the crash. The aircraft diverted toward Laredo. The Laredo airport tower reported a mechanical issue and lost contact with the plane. A few minutes later, the aircraft crash-landed on Loop 20 near Saunders Street, close to the U.S.–Mexico border. Six people were on board. One was killed. Five survivors were taken to a hospital in stable condition. The aircraft struck a moving car on the highway, scattering debris across multiple lanes and shutting down Loop 20 in both directions. The Laredo Police Department, the Texas Department of Public Safety, the FBI, and the National Transportation Safety Board have all responded. Loop 20 remained closed through much of June 17, 2026, while federal agencies worked the scene.
Bystanders described the scene as something from a film. A witness named Zayra Garza, who told reporters she was driving co-workers home when she came upon the crash, said: “It looked like part of a movie. I was in shock. What was worrying me was the fire. I was concerned that it could have just exploded at any time.” Two men — one with a sledgehammer, one with a shovel — used their tools to break the cockpit glass and pry open the aircraft door. Laredo Police Public Information Officer Jose Baeza said at the scene: “Regrettably and tragically there is one deceased involved in this crash. What we have tonight is a tragic event.” Some first responders suffered smoke inhalation.
Laredo Mayor Dr. Victor Treviño urged patience: “Aviation investigations take time, and it is important that we avoid speculation while the facts are being gathered.”
NetJets, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, said in a statement it is working with authorities.
Those are the facts. Now the law.
Two different worlds of victims on the same highway
Here is something most people do not understand until it is too late: a plane crash that lands on a public highway creates two entirely separate groups of victims, and each one has a different legal path with different defendants, different rules, and different dollar ceilings.
The six people who were on the plane. Their claims arise out of international air carriage — the flight began in San José del Cabo, Mexico — and so the Montreal Convention, an international treaty the United States has signed and Congress has implemented at 49 U.S.C. § 40105, controls much of their recovery against the airline. Under Article 17 of that treaty, the air carrier (NetJets) is strictly liable for death or bodily injury caused by an accident during international carriage, up to 113,100 Special Drawing Rights (roughly $153,000 U.S.) per passenger, with a rebuttable presumption of liability above that amount. The Montreal Convention also gives the families a choice of forum under Article 33 — and Austin, the planned destination, is one of the places that will work.
The driver and any passengers in the car that was struck on Loop 20. Their claims are not aviation claims. They are Texas state-law negligence claims against NetJets arising out of an aircraft striking their car on a Texas highway. The Montreal Convention does not apply to them. Their damages are uncapped by any treaty. They can recover full economic losses, full non-economic damages, and punitive damages on the right proof. If the Loop 20 victim suffered a traumatic brain injury or a spinal cord injury, that claim may end up being the most valuable single case that comes out of this disaster. We treat that claim the way we would treat any case handled by our car accident practice, because that is exactly what it is at its core — a vehicle struck by a corporate defendant’s negligence.
We will explain each path separately, because each one is its own case.
Who can be held liable when a private jet comes down on a Texas highway
A commercial jet crash is rarely one defendant’s problem. In a case like this, the responsible parties form a stack. Each layer is a separate insurance tower, a separate defense team, and a separate source of recovery.
NetJets Aviation, Inc. NetJets is the Part 135 operator of the aircraft — meaning it is regulated under stricter rules than private pilots. NetJets is directly and vicariously liable for the conduct of its pilots and its in-house operations. It is the company that made the decisions to dispatch the flight, to plan the route, to accept the aircraft’s airworthiness, to schedule the crew, and to operate the flight under Part 135 rules. The fact that the tower heard a “mechanical issue” report and then lost contact is a powerful inference that the company had — or should have had — information about this aircraft’s condition before it ever took off from Cabo. NetJets is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, which is relevant for two reasons: the recoverable insurance and the willingness of a public-company subsidiary to settle high-profile exposure.
The NetJets pilots (captain and first officer). Pilot negligence is a separate basis of liability. Pilot records, training files, duty and rest records, medical certificates, and currency under 14 CFR Part 135 are all in the evidence chain. If pilot fatigue, error, or disqualification contributed to the crash, the pilots are individually named defendants and NetJets is also vicariously liable for their conduct under respondeat superior (the legal doctrine that holds an employer responsible for the negligent acts of employees performed within the scope of their employment).
NetJets’ maintenance provider — in-house or a contracted Part 145 repair station. This is the “mechanical issue” defendant. A Part 145 repair station is an FAA-certified maintenance facility authorized to perform inspections and repairs on aircraft. Maintenance records, work orders, logbook entries, deferred-maintenance authorizations, Minimum Equipment List (MEL) usage, and compliance with every applicable Airworthiness Directive (an FAA-issued mandatory safety fix) on this exact aircraft are central. If a component was not properly inspected, not properly repaired, or returned to service when it should not have been, the maintenance provider — and through it, NetJets — carries that exposure.
Textron Aviation Inc. Textron is the Wichita, Kansas-based manufacturer of the Cessna Citation Latitude (model 680A). Under Texas product-liability law (Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 82.001 et seq.), Textron can be strictly liable for a manufacturing defect, a design defect, or a failure to warn about a known risk in the airframe, fuel system, autopilot, or ice protection components. The Citation Latitude has been the subject of multiple FAA Airworthiness Directives over its service life, and any of them could be relevant to the “mechanical issue” report. Textron will raise the General Aviation Revitalization Act (GARA), a federal statute that creates an 18-year statute of repose for most general-aviation product claims, but GARA has important exceptions and does not apply to all air-carrier operations.
Pratt & Whitney Canada. The Citation Latitude is powered by Pratt & Whitney Canada PW306D1 engines. If the mechanical failure originated in an engine — fuel system, compressor, turbine, FADEC (Full Authority Digital Engine Control, the computer that runs a modern jet engine) — the engine manufacturer is a separate products-liability defendant.
Component subcontractors. Honeywell, Garmin, and Rockwell Collins supply avionics and cockpit systems. Each is a potential defendant if the “mechanical issue” originated in their component.
The defendant stack is built so that if one layer fails, the case lives at the next layer. We map that stack on day one.
Texas law on aviation wrongful death
Texas has a strong wrongful-death and survival framework for cases like this one. Here is the actual statute, what it means in plain language, and what it is worth.
Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code §§ 71.001 – 71.003 — the Texas Wrongful Death Act. A wrongful-death action may be brought by the surviving spouse, children, or parents of the deceased. Adopted children and adoptive parents are included on the same footing. The damages the jury may award include: (1) pecuniary loss — the financial support the family has lost; (2) loss of companionship and society — what the family no longer has at the dinner table, on holidays, in everyday life; (3) mental anguish — the grief and the empty-chair suffering; and (4) loss of inheritance — what the deceased would have accumulated and left to the family. Texas has not imposed a general cap on compensatory damages in aviation cases. The amounts are uncapped. A jury that knows the case gets to decide what the loss is worth.
Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 71.002(b) provides that the jury “may award damages in an amount that the jury finds to be fair and just” — including pecuniary loss, loss of companionship and society, mental anguish, and loss of inheritance.
Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 71.021 — the survival action. This is a separate claim, brought by the estate of the deceased, for the deceased’s own pre-death conscious pain and suffering — and, critically, for punitive damages. Texas has abolished punitive damages inside the wrongful-death statute, but they remain available in a survival action on clear and convincing evidence of gross negligence, malice, or fraud. That distinction is enormous. In an aviation case where the evidence suggests the carrier knew about a mechanical issue and flew the aircraft anyway, punitive damages are not a wish — they are a real cause of action with real exposure on a Berkshire-Hathaway-owned defendant.
Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.003 — the two-year statute of limitations. Both wrongful-death and survival actions in Texas must be filed within two years of the date the cause of action accrues. The clock is running. The 30-day NTSB party-status window, however, is the clock that matters first.
Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 33.001 — modified comparative negligence. Texas is a 51% bar state. If the deceased or the injured person is found to be more than 50% at fault for the crash, they recover nothing. This is different from some neighboring states. In a commercial-aviation case, fault is almost always the carrier’s, but the defense will work hard to move that percentage. The math is the math — every percentage point the defense can pin on the family is money taken off the recovery.
Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 41.003 — punitive damages standard. Punitive damages in Texas are not limited by a cap in aviation cases. They are awarded only on clear and convincing evidence — a higher burden than the typical “more likely than not” — of gross negligence, malice, or fraud. Against a Berkshire-owned defendant with a brand reputation and stock-price exposure, this is a serious part of the negotiation. The “mechanical issue” report from the tower, the lost contact, and the maintenance record we are about to demand are exactly the kinds of facts that can support that finding.
No general cap on compensatory damages. Caps on compensatory damages in Texas exist only in medical-malpractice cases under § 74.301. They do not exist in aviation, in trucking, or in most other tort cases. Your family is not fighting for a percentage of a cap. The jury decides the number.
Loss of consortium. A surviving spouse has a separate claim for loss of consortium — the loss of the marital relationship, the affection, the sexual relationship, the household services. This is a personal claim belonging to the spouse, brought in the spouse’s own name, on top of the wrongful-death claim. Our wrongful death practice knows how to build and present that case alongside the main claim.
Pre-impact terror. Texas allows recovery for the conscious pain and suffering a victim experienced before death — the terror of knowing the plane is going down, the fire, the impact, the moment before. In a case where the passengers and pilots were conscious through some or all of the descent, pre-impact terror is a real and substantial element of damages.
The Montreal Convention: what international flight means for the family of a passenger
Because this flight originated in San José del Cabo, Mexico, the Montreal Convention applies to the claims of the six people who were on the aircraft. The treaty is enforced in U.S. courts under 49 U.S.C. § 40105. The relevant rules:
Article 17 — strict liability floor. The carrier (NetJets) is strictly liable for death or bodily injury “caused by an accident” that takes place on board the aircraft or in the course of any of the operations of embarking or disembarking. There is no need to prove negligence to recover the floor. The amount of the floor is 113,100 Special Drawing Rights — roughly $153,000 U.S. — per passenger. That is the minimum, and it does not require a fight.
Article 21 — the rebuttal and the presumption above the floor. Above the 113,100 SDR floor, the carrier is presumed liable for the full amount of damages, but it can rebut that presumption by proving the accident was not due to its own negligence or that of its agents. The “mechanical issue” the tower reported and the lost contact are facts the carrier will struggle to use to rebut liability — both of those facts point to NetJets’ own maintenance and operations.
Article 33 — where the case can be filed. The Montreal Convention lets a plaintiff file in: (1) the carrier’s domicile — NetJets is headquartered in Columbus, Ohio; (2) the carrier’s principal place of business; (3) the place where the contract of carriage was made; or (4) the place of destination. The destination here was Austin, Texas. That gives a Texas federal court jurisdiction over the Montreal Convention claims, which is a significant procedural advantage — the case is heard in the United States, under U.S. procedural rules, in a venue where our firm practices daily.
What the Convention does not preempt. The Montreal Convention does not preempt Texas state law for compensatory damages, punitive damages under Texas standards, or claims by parties not on board the aircraft. The Loop 20 motorist’s case is fully a Texas state-law case, with no treaty cap.
What evidence dies in the next thirty days
This is the part of the page most law firms skip. It is the part that decides whether your family recovers anything close to what the case is worth. Aviation cases are won on preservation. If the evidence is gone, the case dies. Here is what exists, who holds it, and how fast it can disappear.
FAA air traffic control voice recordings from Laredo Tower and Houston Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC). These recordings capture the aircraft’s last communications with controllers, the “mechanical issue” report, the moment of lost contact, and any distress calls. FAA voice recordings are typically retained only 45 to 120 days under FAA Order 8020.11, unless a formal preservation request or litigation hold is in place. We submit the FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request and the litigation hold letter in week one — not in month six when the recordings may already be in the recycle bin.
Flight Data Recorder (FDR) data. The Citation Latitude is equipped with an FDR that records hundreds of parameters — airspeed, altitude, engine performance, control inputs, system faults, and cockpit voice. The NTSB takes custody of the FDR. To see what is on it, a victim or a victim’s representative must be designated as a “party” to the NTSB investigation under 49 CFR § 831.11. The window to apply for party status is short — measured in days, not months — and once the NTSB closes that window, your access becomes limited and adversarial. We file the application in week one.
NetJets maintenance records, Airworthiness Directive compliance logbooks, work orders, MEL/CDL usage, and component replacement history. 14 CFR § 91.417 requires operators to retain maintenance records, but the rules on retention are specific and records can disappear in routine document-destruction cycles. The preservation letter goes to NetJets, to any contracted Part 145 repair station, and to every maintenance vendor that touched this airframe and these engines, in week one. This is the evidence that tells us whether NetJets knew about a problem before the flight.
NetJets pilot records. The captain and first officer’s qualification files, training records, flight-time logs, duty and rest records, and medical certificates. Spoliation (the intentional destruction of evidence) of personnel files is a real risk; we send a separate preservation letter for the crew records in week one.
FlightRadar24 and ADS-B (Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast) tracking data. FlightRadar24 retains its historical tracking data for approximately 90 days. ADS-B data is independently preserved on multiple platforms, but only for limited windows. We screenshot the public FlightRadar24 track for the flight on the day we are retained, and we send a formal preservation request to FlightRadar24 and to the underlying ADS-B network operators.
Witness cell phone video and bystander photographs. The New York Post report describes video from the scene already posted online. The men with the sledgehammer and the shovel. The upside-down aircraft. The fire. These videos are already uploaded to social media platforms and YouTube. Many will be taken down or restricted within days or weeks. We identify the bystanders, request preservation, and obtain the original video files before they disappear. Some of that video is already on the news channels’ servers and can be obtained through subpoenas to those outlets.
The vehicle struck on Loop 20. That car’s Event Data Recorder (EDR) — a black-box-style device that records pre-impact speed, braking, and steering inputs — is in the impound lot. The damage pattern on the car is corroborating evidence of crash dynamics. The car’s occupant data, restraint use, and injury pattern are all in the evidence chain. We get our expert to the impound lot in week one, before the vehicle is released to the insurance company.
NetJets dispatch, flight-following, and operational control records. Pre-flight decisions, weather briefings, NOTAMs (Notices to Airmen — alerts about conditions or equipment outages along the route), diversion decisions, and crew scheduling. Subject to preservation but routinely purged on rolling schedules. Litigation hold letter required.
Airframe and engine wreckage. The NTSB retains custody. A party to the NTSB investigation may designate a Technical Advisor to observe the engine teardown, the fuel system examination, and the structural analysis. The Technical Advisor is our eyes and ears on the physical evidence. We designate one in week one.
Laredo Airport ARFF (Aircraft Rescue and Fire Fighting), EMS, and Laredo Police records. Scene response timeline, occupant counts, statements made at the scene by survivors. Open-records requests go out in week one to capture unredacted versions before they are sealed.
The single biggest mistake families make in aviation cases is to wait. Waiting means the FDR readout is interpreted first by the carrier’s experts. Waiting means the maintenance records are “lost” in a routine destruction cycle. Waiting means the bystander videos are taken down and the witnesses drift away. We send the preservation letters the day you call.
Why NetJets cases are not like other aviation cases
NetJets is not a small operator. It is the world’s largest fractional jet ownership company, with a fleet of more than 750 aircraft — Cessna Citations, Bombardier Challengers, Globals, Embraer Phenoms, and Falcons. It is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, the Warren Buffett conglomerate. Two things flow from that fact.
The first is resources. NetJets will be defended by elite aviation defense counsel. The recoverable insurance tower is substantial. Berkshire subsidiaries typically carry aviation liability limits measured in the hundreds of millions of dollars, with self-insured retentions that allow the carrier to control its own defense. This is the side of the wealth you should not fear. The wealth is what makes the case collectible.
The second is exposure. Berkshire Hathaway’s brand reputation matters. A high-profile fatal aviation case — a plane on fire on a Texas highway near the border, a fatality, multiple injuries, a struck vehicle — is exactly the kind of event a public-company subsidiary works hard to resolve quietly, quickly, and at numbers that reflect the publicity risk. The wealth of the defendant is a sword as much as it is a shield.
NetJets has been the subject of multiple NTSB investigations and prior wrongful-death litigation. The pattern of how the company defends these cases is known. They invoke the Montreal Convention. They invoke GARA against the manufacturer. They hire the best aviation defense bar. They argue pilot error. They settle — but only when the family’s evidence is locked in and the NTSB probable-cause report is in their hands. We work backward from that timeline.
The insurance company playbook — and the counters to each play
Aviation insurance carriers, including NetJets’ coverage tower, run a recognizable playbook in the first 30 days. We have seen it. Lupe Peña has sat in the rooms where it is run. Here is the playbook and the counter to each move. For a deeper look at what to say — and what not to say — to an insurance adjuster, we have a separate guide.
Play 1: The “sympathy call” within 48 hours. A representative of NetJets or its aviation insurer will call a family member — often the spouse or the adult child — to “express condolences” and to “ask a few questions to help us understand what happened.” The call is being recorded. The questions are calibrated to lock the family into a version of events before they have counsel. The counter: do not take the call. Direct all contact through your lawyer. There is no legal obligation to speak with the carrier, and there is enormous legal risk in doing so without preparation.
Play 2: The quick settlement check to the Loop 20 motorist. Within days, the vehicle’s property damage may be settled for a few thousand dollars with a release attached — a release that can extinguish bodily-injury claims if it is not drafted correctly. The counter: do not sign a release. The property damage and the bodily injury are separate claims. A quick check is often a strategy to close the file before the injury picture develops.
Play 3: The “cooperation agreement.” NetJets or its insurer may send a form titled something like a “Cooperation Agreement” or “Confidential Investigation Agreement.” These forms usually include broad releases of medical records, broad releases of communications, and a prohibition on speaking with any other party — including the NTSB — without the carrier’s consent. The counter: read nothing, sign nothing. Have us read it first.
Play 4: The social media mine. The defense will look at every public social media account of every family member — the bereaved spouse, the adult child, the sibling — for posts, photos, and check-ins that can be used to challenge grief, mental anguish, loss of companionship, or even physical capacity. The counter: do not post about the crash, the victim, the investigation, the airline, or the law firm. Privacy settings are not a defense. A text to a friend can be subpoenaed. A post in a private group can be obtained.
Play 5: The Stowers timing game. In Texas, a Stowers demand is a formal settlement offer to the carrier that, if unreasonably refused, exposes the carrier to the full amount of any later verdict. The carrier’s defense strategy is almost always to wait — wait for the NTSB probable-cause report, wait for the medical records to be developed, wait for the family to be financially pressured by medical bills and lost income — and then offer a number that is a fraction of the case value. The counter: we build the case file in parallel with the NTSB investigation so that the Stowers demand is supported by the evidence when we make it, not six months after the family has had to settle low.
Play 6: The GARA motion. Textron Aviation will file a motion to dismiss the product-liability claim under GARA’s 18-year statute of repose. The counter: GARA has exceptions, and not every claim against a manufacturer is preempted. We prepare the GARA response before the motion is filed, so the fight is ready.
These are the plays. We have seen them before. The counter to every one of them is the same: do not act alone, do not sign alone, and do not speak alone.
What a case like this is worth in Texas
We do not promise specific dollar amounts, and we do not publish fake “average” verdicts. Every aviation case is its own case, and the value of any individual case depends on the specific facts, the specific injuries, the specific defendants, and the specific insurance. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
What we can say is the range of exposures on a case like this, the drivers of value, and how the math is built.
For a single wrongful-death claim of a high-net-worth NetJets passenger — a frequent leisure traveler, an executive, a retiree with substantial earning capacity, or a business owner — the realistic range of compensatory damages (pecuniary loss, loss of companionship, mental anguish, loss of inheritance) runs from the low seven figures to the mid-eight figures, with a long right tail in the most egregious cases. The pre-impact terror damages, where the passengers were conscious through part of the descent, add another layer.
The survival action, brought by the estate, can carry an additional seven-figure or low-eight-figure award for pre-death conscious pain and suffering. On clear-and-convincing evidence of gross negligence, punitive damages are uncapped under Texas law and can multiply the recovery substantially. Against a Berkshire-Hathaway-owned defendant, punitive damages are a real part of the negotiation, not a bargaining chip.
For the five survivors with serious injuries, the case value depends on the injury picture — burns, orthopedic fractures, traumatic brain injury, smoke inhalation, internal injuries, PTSD. A traumatic brain injury case, depending on severity, can carry seven-figure lifetime care costs. The brain-injury practice we have built is the spine of that kind of claim. We have recovered more than $5 million in documented brain-injury settlements in the firm’s record, and we have recovered $3.8 million or more in amputation cases. Those results are not guarantees of any future outcome — they are proof that we have done this work. For more on how these cases are built, our definitive guide to brain injury lawsuits walks through the proof problem in detail.
For the driver of the struck car on Loop 20, the case is uncapped by any treaty and is built on Texas state-law negligence. If that occupant suffered a brain injury, a spinal injury, severe burns, or death, the value of the case is the same range as for any catastrophic injury caused by a corporate defendant’s negligence — with the added weight of the publicity, the highway location, the international flight origin, and the corporate-defendant depth.
In the aggregate — one death, five injured plane occupants, an unknown number of injured Loop 20 motorists — the total exposure on a case like this regularly exceeds $100 million when the compensatory, survival, and punitive layers are added together. We tell you that not to impress you, but because understanding the size of the case is the only way to understand why NetJets’ defense team will run the playbook above on every family.
How the case is actually built — the proof story, week by week
Here is what a case like this looks like from the inside, in the order the work happens.
Week one. Litigation hold and preservation letters go out to NetJets, Textron Aviation, Pratt & Whitney Canada, every component subcontractor, and any contracted Part 145 maintenance provider. The NTSB party-status application is filed. The FAA FOIA for ATC voice recordings is submitted. Open-records requests go to Laredo PD, Texas DPS, Laredo Airport ARFF, and Laredo EMS. The flight track on FlightRadar24 is captured and a formal preservation request is sent. The struck vehicle is identified and our expert is dispatched to the impound lot. A Court-Recognized Pilot Expert and a Cessna Citation Latitude Maintenance Expert are retained.
Week two to week four. We meet the NTSB investigator in charge. We designate our Technical Advisor to observe the engine teardown and the airframe examination. We obtain the FDR readout and the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) transcript. We serve the first discovery on NetJets — pilot records, training files, duty and rest records, the aircraft’s full maintenance history back to manufacture, all Airworthiness Directive compliance records, and the operational control records for the flight.
Month two to month six. We depose the tower controllers. We depose the pilots, the dispatchers, the maintenance personnel, and the NetJets safety director. We retain the accident reconstruction expert, the human-factors expert on crew response, the economic expert on lost earning capacity, and — if a survivor has a catastrophic injury — a life-care planner. We investigate the safety culture at NetJets: prior incidents, prior NTSB findings, internal safety memos, and any pattern of mechanical-issue reports on the Citation Latitude fleet.
Month six to month twelve. Expert reports exchange. Mediation window opens — though early mediations against NetJets rarely succeed because the carrier’s posture is institutional and the NTSB report is usually not yet in our hands. The NTSB probable-cause report typically lands somewhere in this window and is the inflection point in the case’s value.
Month twelve to month twenty-four. Trial preparation. Voir dire (jury selection) on aviation attitudes, corporate-wealth bias, and any pre-existing opinions about NetJets, Berkshire, or Warren Buffett. Motion in limine (a pretrial motion asking the court to exclude specific evidence) to exclude the NTSB’s “no determination of civil liability” language, which the defense sometimes tries to read to the jury as exoneration. If punitive damages are pursued, we bifurcate the trial under Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 174(b) — liability first, punitive damages second — to keep the liability phase clean.
The number at the end of this is built from the FDR data, the maintenance history, the engine teardown, the pilot records, the economic projections, the life-care plan, and the punitive exposure on a Berkshire-owned defendant. That is the proof story. Every step of it has a deadline, and the deadlines start the day you call.
If you are the family of the person who died
The first conversations you have after a fatal aviation crash will define what the rest of the case looks like. Here is what we tell the family in the first call.
Do not give a recorded statement to anyone — not to NetJets, not to an aviation insurer, not to an investigator from the airline’s defense team. Any statement you give can and will be used to lock in facts before you have counsel to advise you on what you are saying.
Do not sign anything. Not a “cooperation agreement.” Not a “preservation of evidence” form from the airline. Not a medical authorization. Have us read it first.
Do not post on social media. Not about the crash. Not about the airline. Not about the investigation. Not about your grief. A post you make in a private group can be obtained. A text to a friend can be subpoenaed. The defense will be looking.
Let the NTSB and FBI know, through counsel, that you wish to be designated as a party to the NTSB investigation under 49 CFR § 831.11. That designation is the difference between watching the investigation and being inside the investigation. The 30-day window is narrow.
Do not let the airline or its insurer select your medical or mental-health providers. Your doctors are your doctors. The airline’s doctors are not.
Preserve everything you have. The boarding pass. The flight confirmation. The emails. The phone call log. The screenshots of the FlightRadar24 track. The names of the bystanders who pulled your loved one out of the wreckage. The cards the airline sent. All of it.
The Texas two-year statute of limitations under § 16.003 has not yet begun to run dangerously close. But the evidence clock is what matters now, not the statute clock.
If you are one of the five survivors — or the family of one
The same framework applies, with additional emphasis on medical-record preservation.
Every treating physician, every emergency room record, every imaging study, every discharge summary, every follow-up visit is part of the evidence chain that will define your damages a year from now. Ask every provider for copies. Sign the medical authorizations your lawyer sends you, not the ones the airline sends you.
If the injury is a traumatic brain injury — and an aircraft crash on a highway with smoke inhalation and pre-impact terror is exactly the mechanism that produces one — understand that a “mild” TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) often presents with a normal CT scan, and the symptoms (headaches, memory loss, personality change, sleep disturbance) may not show up for weeks. Our brain-injury practice knows how to prove these injuries when the scans are clean. The defense will wave the clean CT in front of a jury; the answer is neuropsychological testing, advanced imaging, and the testimony of the people who knew the survivor before.
Do not settle the medical bills with the airline’s offers. Those offers almost always come with releases.
If you are still in the hospital in Laredo, let our firm coordinate with your treating team. We can recommend aviation-injury-experienced physicians in Texas, but your treating doctors remain in charge.
If you were the driver or a passenger in the car struck on Loop 20
You are the third group of victims in this disaster, and your case is its own case. You were not on the plane. The Montreal Convention does not cap your damages. Your claim is a Texas state-law negligence claim against NetJets for the operation of an aircraft that struck your vehicle on a Texas highway.
If you were injured — even if you were released from the ER and told you were “fine” — go to your own doctor in the next 48 hours. Internal injuries and traumatic brain injuries from aircraft impacts can present late. The “seatbelt sign” on your abdomen, the headaches, the dizziness, the back pain, the nightmares — these are not nothing. They are evidence. Document them.
If your car was a total loss, do not sign a property-damage release from the airline’s insurer until a lawyer has read it. The release that pays for the car can extinguish your bodily-injury claim if it is not drafted correctly.
Your case may end up being the highest-value individual claim that comes out of this disaster. The mechanism — a corporate aircraft on fire striking a passenger car on a public highway at highway speed — is the kind of evidence a Texas jury understands viscerally. NetJets is on the hook under Texas law in the same way it would be on the hook if one of its trucks hit your car. We treat it that way.
Why this firm
Ralph Manginello has spent more than 27 years in courtrooms on catastrophic-injury and wrongful-death cases. He is admitted to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, the federal trial bar that handles aviation cases removed from state court. He is admitted to the State Bar of Texas. He founded this firm in 2001 on the idea that people in a legal emergency deserve someone who picks up the phone. He has recovered more than $50 million for Texas families since 1998, including a $5 million or more brain-injury settlement, a $3.8 million or more amputation settlement, and a $2.5 million or more truck-crash recovery. He has been a part of the BP Texas City refinery-explosion litigation. He has been recognized by Avvo with an 8.2 “Excellent” rating and a Client’s Choice award, and by Martindale-Hubbell with a Peer Review Rating. He is a member of the Cheshire Academy Athletic Hall of Fame. He started the Attorney 911 Podcast and the firm’s YouTube channel so that Texas families could hear the answers to the scariest legal questions, in plain English, for free.
Lupe Peña is on our team because he used to be on the other side. Before he joined us, Lupe spent years inside a national insurance defense firm, in the rooms where aviation claims are priced, where reserves are set, where Colossus-style claims-valuation software is calibrated, and where the playbook above is built. He knows what the carrier’s file looks like before the carrier’s lawyer ever calls you. He fights that playbook now, on your side. Lupe is a fluent Spanish speaker. We serve your family fully in Spanish.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. The dollar figures in the firm’s record are real; they are the firm’s record, and they are not a promise of what your case will be worth. Your case is its own case, and we will tell you honestly what we think it is worth, what we think it will take, and how long we think it will take. For a clear look at how contingency fees work in a case like this, we have a separate guide.
What the first call is like
The first call is free. It is confidential. It does not obligate you to anything. We do not sign you up on the call. We listen. We ask questions. We tell you what we think is going to happen in the next 30 days and what you should and should not do. If we are the right firm to handle your case, we tell you that. If we are not, we tell you that, too.
The consultation costs nothing. There is no fee unless we win. We do the work; you pay nothing up front. We advance the costs of experts, depositions, and records. You pay us back out of the recovery, not out of your pocket.
If you are in Laredo tonight, or in Austin, or in Houston, or anywhere in Texas, the number is below. If you prefer Spanish, ask for Lupe.
Frequently Asked Questions
What should I do in the first 24 hours after a family member died in an aviation crash?
Do not give a recorded statement to the airline, to the airline’s insurer, or to any investigator. Do not sign anything — not a cooperation agreement, not a preservation of evidence form, not a medical authorization. Direct all calls to your lawyer. Begin preserving your own evidence — the boarding pass, the flight confirmation, emails, the FlightRadar24 screenshot, the names of any bystanders who spoke to you. Ask your lawyer to file the NTSB party-status application under 49 CFR § 831.11 in the first week, because the 30-day window is narrow.
How long do I have to file a wrongful-death lawsuit in Texas?
Two years from the date of death, under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.003. The clock is running, but the evidence clock — the FAA voice recordings (45 to 120 days), the FlightRadar24 data (about 90 days), the maintenance records (subject to routine destruction), and the NTSB party-status window (about 30 days) — is what matters first. Do not let the two-year SOL lull you into waiting on the evidence.
What is the Montreal Convention and how does it affect my case?
The Montreal Convention is an international treaty the United States signed and implemented at 49 U.S.C. § 40105. Under Article 17, the air carrier is strictly liable for death or bodily injury “caused by an accident” during international carriage, up to 113,100 Special Drawing Rights (about $153,000 U.S.) per passenger, with a rebuttable presumption of liability above that amount. The Convention applies to the passengers and crew of the NetJets flight because it originated in San José del Cabo, Mexico. It does not apply to the people in the car struck on Loop 20. Article 33 lets the family file in a U.S. court because Austin was the planned destination.
Can I sue NetJets, or only the manufacturer of the plane?
You can sue both. The defendant stack is layered. NetJets is the operator and faces direct liability for the dispatch, the maintenance, the airworthiness decisions, and vicarious liability for the pilots. Textron Aviation manufactured the Cessna Citation Latitude and is a products-liability defendant under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 82.001 et seq. Pratt & Whitney Canada manufactured the engines and is a separate products-liability defendant. The component subcontractors — Honeywell, Garmin, Rockwell Collins — are potential additional defendants. Each layer is a separate insurance tower. We map the stack so that the case is collectible at every level.
What is NTSB party status, and why does the 30-day window matter?
Under 49 CFR § 831.11, a victim or a victim’s representative can be designated as a “party” to the NTSB investigation. Party status gives you access to the Flight Data Recorder readout, the cockpit voice recorder transcript, the maintenance records the NTSB obtains, the witness statements the NTSB takes, and the right to designate a Technical Advisor to observe the engine teardown and airframe examination. If you miss the party-status window, your access becomes limited and adversarial. We file the application in week one.
How much is my case worth?
We do not promise a specific number, and we do not publish fake “average” verdicts. Every case is its own case. What we can tell you is the range of exposures on a case like this: a single wrongful-death claim of a high-net-worth NetJets passenger can run from the low seven figures to the mid-eight figures, plus pre-death conscious pain and suffering via the survival action, plus punitive damages on clear-and-convincing evidence of gross negligence under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 41.003. The aggregate exposure on a case with one death, five injured plane occupants, and an injured Loop 20 motorist can exceed $100 million. The drivers of value are the maintenance record, the pilot record, the FDR data, the engine teardown, the medical records, the economic-loss projections, the life-care plan, and the punitive exposure on a Berkshire-Hathaway-owned defendant. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
What if I was partly at fault?
Texas uses modified comparative negligence under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 33.001. If the injured person is found to be more than 50% at fault, they recover nothing. If they are 50% or less at fault, their recovery is reduced by their percentage. In a commercial-aviation case, the fault is almost always the carrier’s — the pilot failed to handle the emergency, the maintenance failed to catch the defect, the manufacturer produced the defective component. The defense will work hard to move every percentage point, and we work harder to hold it. This is a less-favorable rule than some neighboring states, and it is one more reason to build the case with the evidence from day one.
What does the firm charge, and do I pay anything up front?
Nothing up front. We work on a contingency fee — a percentage of the recovery, paid at the end, only if we win. We advance the costs of the experts, the depositions, the records, and the trial preparation. If we do not win, you owe us nothing for the fee and nothing for the costs. The first consultation is free. There is no obligation. If you want to talk, the call is below.
Can the family speak Spanish with the lawyers?
Yes. Lupe Peña is a fluent Spanish speaker, born and raised in Texas, and the firm serves families fully in Spanish — from the first call through the investigation, the negotiations, the depositions, and the trial. Hablamos Español. Ask for Lupe.
What comes next
The NTSB will release a factual report in the coming months. The probable-cause findings will follow. The depositions will follow that. The case will take between one and three years to resolve, depending on the injuries, the defendants, the court’s docket, and the carrier’s willingness to engage in meaningful settlement discussions. We will be in it for the entire run.
In the meantime, do not speak to the airline, do not speak to the insurer, do not post about the case, and do not sign anything. Preserve what you have. Get medical care for the survivors. Get a will and a personal-representative appointment handled for the deceased. And call us.
The number is 1-888-ATTY-911. The consultation is free, confidential, and 24/7. The case costs you nothing unless we win. Hablamos Español. We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC — and we will be on the other side of the line.