Laredo Texas NetJets Crash Kills Joshua Baer: What the Family Must Do Right Now
We are sorry for what brought you here.
If you are reading this page in the hours after learning that someone you love was killed in a plane crash, you do not need another article. You need a plan — and a trial lawyer who can lay that plan in front of you, in plain language, before the company that operated the flight starts running its own plan around you. That is what this page is.
On the night of June 16, 2026, a Cessna Citation Latitude operated by NetJets Aviation, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, crashed onto a highway near Laredo International Airport in Webb County, Texas. The flight had departed San José del Cabo, Mexico, bound for Austin. The crew declared an emergency because the airplane was low on fuel. Both engines lost power on final approach. Two pilots and three teenage passengers were pulled from the wreckage by bystanders and first responders. The sixth person on board, a 50-year-old Austin venture capitalist and the founder of one of the most active startup communities in the country, did not survive. This page is written for his family — and for any Texas family in a similar situation — about what Texas law actually gives you, what evidence is vanishing as you read this, and what the company is already doing to protect itself.
We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. We take aviation wrongful-death and catastrophic-injury cases in Texas and across the country. We work on contingency — no fee unless we win. We offer a free consultation 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with a live person who picks up the phone — never a call center. That number is 1-888-ATTY-911 (1-888-288-9911). Save it now. You will use it.
Let us give you what we know, what the law gives you, and what we would do today if your family called us tonight.
What We Know About the Laredo Crash
Here is the publicly reported sequence, drawn from the National Transportation Safety Board’s preliminary statements, the city of Laredo’s briefings, and the responding federal investigators. We are giving you the facts as we know them, with no editorial color — because the editorial color is the family’s grief, and it belongs to them alone.
A Cessna Citation Latitude — a modern midsize business jet — was operating a flight from San José del Cabo, Mexico, to Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. Somewhere over South Texas, the flight crew declared an emergency with air traffic control, advising that the aircraft was low on fuel and requesting priority handling into Laredo International Airport. The crew was cleared for an emergency approach. Witnesses on the ground and former federal investigators who have spoken publicly about the cockpit-radio traffic have said the final minutes of the flight appear consistent with an attempt to glide the airplane into the field after both engines flamed out from fuel exhaustion.
The airplane did not make the runway. It came down on a highway near the airport. The impact killed one person aboard. Two pilots and three teenage passengers were pulled from the wreckage alive. The mayor of Laredo told reporters that, while the loss of life was deeply regrettable, the survival of five passengers made the scene “nothing short of a miracle.” Bystanders — not professionals — helped with the rescue in the minutes before the first fire and police units arrived.
The National Transportation Safety Board has taken command of the forensic investigation. The cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and the flight data recorder (FDR) — the so-called “black boxes,” although they are actually painted international orange — have been recovered and shipped to the NTSB’s laboratory in Washington, D.C., for download and analysis. The Federal Aviation Administration is monitoring compliance with all applicable regulations and will handle any certificate or enforcement action against the operator.
The carrier has confirmed through a written statement that safety is “the foundation of everything we do” and that it will “cooperate fully” with the NTSB investigation. The carrier is not yet speculating publicly on the cause. That silence is corporate discipline, not innocence. We will explain in a moment why that silence matters to the case you are about to be invited not to file.
The First 72 Hours: What the Family Must Do Right Now
A plane crash is not like a car wreck. It is not like a commercial-airline crash, either. This is a fractional-ownership jet, operated under FAA Part 135 rules, with a tiny crew, an empty seat, and a corporate parent that has had 40 years of safety reputation to protect and a public-relations team that is already running. The hours after a fatal aviation crash are some of the most unequal in American civil practice. The company that operated the flight will be ready. Your family needs to be ready too.
Here is what we tell every Texas aviation-wrongful-death family in the first call.
Step 1 — Do not give a recorded statement to anyone. Within 24 to 72 hours of a fatal crash, the carrier and its insurance carrier will reach out. The call will be warm, sympathetic, and from a person who introduces themselves as a “claims specialist” or an “investigator.” They will ask for a recorded statement about who was on board, the medical history of the person who died, the family’s financial picture, and what your loved one said in the days before the flight. That call is not a courtesy. It is evidence-gathering, and it is built to be quoted against you later. Politely decline. Refer them to our office. Do not delete their voicemails — preserve them.
Step 2 — Identify the personal representative. Texas law requires a personal representative to be formally appointed before a wrongful-death action can be filed on behalf of the family. This is a probate-court step that takes days to weeks, and we handle it. The court will name the surviving spouse, an adult child, or a parent as the personal representative. Until that appointment is made, no one — including us — can file suit on behalf of the estate.
Step 3 — Preserve every document and device in your home. Any phone, laptop, tablet, or paper file that belonged to the person who died likely contains communications with the trip planner, the broker who arranged the flight, the family office, the charter operator, and the passengers. Do not “clean up” the device. Do not let a relative reset passwords. Do not let a tech-savvy friend “organize the photos.” If the carrier’s lawyers later want those records, we want them first. Put every device in a drawer, charged, untouched, and call us.
Step 4 — Issue preservation letters now — not next month. Federal aviation regulations and the operator’s own internal policies require the retention of a defined set of records after any incident — and the clock starts ticking the moment the wreckage is removed from the highway. Maintenance logs, fuel-loading records from Mexico, dispatch communications, flight-following records, weight-and-balance worksheets, crew duty records, and the operator’s internal “safety event” file must be preserved. We send these letters the day you call. The letters go to the carrier, the manufacturer, the fuel supplier in Mexico, the fixed-base operator that handled the airplane, and any third-party safety-data service. Letters sent in week one do not have to be litigated later.
Step 5 — Get the death certificate and the autopsy report in motion. The Webb County medical examiner or the Travis County medical examiner — depending on where the body is transported — will perform the post-mortem examination. We work with the family to make sure the chain of custody is clean and that the autopsy findings are reduced to a report we can use.
Step 6 — Do not sign anything from the carrier or its insurer. If a check arrives — and one may arrive, faster than you expect — it will come with a release printed on the back. Do not sign it. A fast check is a quiet closure. It is also, almost always, dramatically less than what the case is worth, because it is sized before the NTSB investigation produces the records that prove liability. Read the wrongful-death claim practice area page on our site for a fuller picture of what we mean by that.
Step 7 — Speak with us tonight. Our line is staffed 24/7. Call 1-888-ATTY-911. The consultation is free. The call is confidential. There is no obligation. If we are not the right fit, we will tell you. If we are, we will be in Webb County and Travis County this week.
Who Can Be Held Responsible: The Defendant Stack in a NetJets Case
A crash like this almost never has one defendant. It has a stack — a series of entities that touch the operation of the flight, each of which controls a different piece of what went wrong. We work the stack from the bottom up, because that is where the insurance lives and where the proof lives.
The operator — NetJets Aviation, Inc. NetJets is the operator of record on this flight. NetJets owned or controlled the airplane, employed or contracted the flight crew, ran the dispatch decision that launched the flight from Mexico, and bore the regulatory duty under FAA Part 135 to plan the flight with adequate fuel reserves, to monitor fuel state in flight, and to divert at the first sign of a problem. Under the legal doctrine of respondeat superior — the rule that an employer is liable for the negligence of its employees acting within the scope of their jobs — NetJets stands behind every decision the pilots made. Under its own corporate duty to maintain the airplane, NetJets stands behind every maintenance choice, every deferred inspection, every prior write-up that did not get fixed. NetJets also bears the regulatory duty to create and preserve a safety culture that does not, even subtly, push crews to take risks to save money. The company is a Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary — a fact that matters for both resources and reputation, and we will return to it in a moment.
The flight crew. The captain and first officer of the flight are named individuals whose actual conduct we will examine in depositions under oath. Pilots are not above the law in this country. They can be sued in their individual capacities for negligence in flight planning, fuel calculation, fuel-state monitoring, diversion decision-making, and emergency execution. Most pilot liability in commercial operations is absorbed by the operator’s insurance, but the individuals remain defendants because a jury verdict against a person has a different weight than a verdict against a corporation — and because individual liability can, in some cases, pierce insurance coverage limits. The pilots are not at-fault for the death, in the sense that this is a passenger case; they are at-fault as employees whose conduct binds the operator.
The manufacturer — Textron Aviation (Cessna). The Cessna Citation Latitude is a modern, well-regarded midsize jet. Its fuel-quantity indicating system, its low-fuel warnings, and its fuel system as a whole are designed and warranted to function. If the NTSB’s investigation — or our own retained experts’ investigation of the wreckage, the maintenance logs, and the aircraft’s history — reveals a fuel leak, a defective fuel-quantity sensor, a fuel line that chafed against a structural member, a fuel-tank seal that failed, or any other design or manufacturing defect, Textron Aviation becomes a defendant under product-liability law. We have seen product cases like this before, including the recent cases against Cessna’s parent over fuel-system problems on related aircraft families.
The fuel supplier and the fixed-base operator in Mexico. If the fuel that was loaded in San José del Cabo was contaminated, mis-measured, or otherwise deficient, the fuel supplier and the FBO that handled the fueling may carry some share of fault. Fuel records from foreign jurisdictions are particularly vulnerable to alteration, loss, and inconsistent measurement standards. The preservation letter we send includes the fueling records by name.
Berkshire Hathaway. NetJets is a Berkshire subsidiary. That fact does not, by itself, make Berkshire a defendant. But it does mean that NetJets is not a small company that can plead poverty. Berkshire’s balance sheet is among the largest in the world. This fact is part of why the case value — which we discuss below — is what it is.
The “act of God” defense — the carrier’s eventual claim that nothing could have prevented this — is the move we will spend most of our time defeating. A fuel-exhaustion accident on a 3,000-mile-range aircraft over a roughly 1,000-mile route is not an act of God. It is a sequence of decisions that should never have produced this outcome, and the records we are about to freeze will show what those decisions were.
Texas Wrongful-Death Law: The Statutes That Protect You
Texas is a good state for a case like this. That is not salesmanship. It is a doctrinal reality that flows from the Texas Wrongful Death Act and the Texas Survival Statute, both of which are codified in the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code, Chapter 71. We will explain what these statutes do in plain language, because the carrier’s lawyers know exactly what they do and they are hoping your family does not.
Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code, Chapter 71 (Wrongful Death and Survival of Actions): Texas law provides that a person is liable for damages arising from an injury that causes another person’s death if the injury was caused by the person’s or its employee’s wrongful act, neglect, carelessness, unskillfulness, or default. The Wrongful Death Act allows certain family members to recover full economic damages — including lost earning capacity, loss of household services, loss of inheritance, and loss of companionship and society — when a loved one is killed by the wrongful conduct of another. Texas also recognizes a separate survival action, brought by the estate, for the decedent’s own pre-death damages, including conscious pain and suffering and any medical expenses incurred before death.
That single paragraph is the foundation of everything we are going to build. Read it twice.
Who can file. Under the Wrongful Death Act, the right to sue belongs to the surviving spouse, the children, and the parents of the deceased. If there is no spouse, child, or parent, the estate’s personal representative may bring the action on behalf of the heirs. There is a separate survival claim that belongs to the estate itself — and that is the claim that captures the decedent’s own pre-death pain and suffering.
What you can recover. Texas is one of the few states that does not cap wrongful-death damages. The cap that you may have heard about — the $250,000 (now adjusted) cap on non-economic damages in medical malpractice cases — does not apply to aviation, to commercial-operator negligence, or to most other wrongful-death settings. That is the crown jewel of a Texas aviation case, and we will deploy it. The recoverable categories include:
- Lost earning capacity. For a 50-year-old venture capitalist who was actively running a major startup ecosystem, this number can run into the tens of millions of dollars over a normal working life expectancy.
- Loss of household services. The value of what the deceased did at home — the parent who drove the kids, the spouse who managed the family finances, the mentor who gave free counsel — has a real-dollar value that economists calculate.
- Loss of companionship and society. Texas recognizes this for spouses, children, and parents. It is the incalculable piece, and the one a jury is allowed to hear about without numbers attached.
- Loss of inheritance. What the deceased would have accumulated and left to the family, net of personal consumption.
- Mental anguish. For the survivors, including the surviving spouse, children, and parents.
- Pre-death pain and suffering. Under the survival statute, the estate can recover for the conscious pain and suffering the deceased experienced between the moment of the fuel emergency and the moment of impact. In aviation cases this is often called “pre-impact terror” — and it is real, it is provable, and Texas juries take it seriously.
The comparative-fault rule. Texas follows a modified comparative-fault rule with a 51% bar. In plain English, if the deceased is found to be 50% or less at fault, recovery is reduced by that percentage but not eliminated. If the deceased is found to be 51% or more at fault, recovery is barred entirely. In a passenger case, this rule rarely matters — a passenger on a chartered flight has no duty to monitor the fuel state of the aircraft. But the carrier’s lawyers will still try to assign some share of fault to the deceased on theories ranging from “he should have known the aircraft had a maintenance history” to “he chose to fly that day.” We answer that with the fact that the regulatory duty to fly the airplane safely belongs to the operator, not to the passenger, and the comparative-fault statute does not change that.
The statute of limitations. Texas wrongful-death actions must be filed within two years of the date of death under the general personal-injury statute of limitations, with very limited exceptions. Survival actions are subject to their own timing rules. This clock matters — and it is why the preservation work we do in week one is so much more valuable than the preservation work done in month eleven. If you are the family of someone killed in an aviation accident in Texas, do not let this clock catch you.
Where the case is filed. Venue is likely proper in either Webb County (where the crash occurred and where the wreckage is) or Travis County (where the deceased lived and worked, and where the operator’s local business presence is strongest). Webb County’s jury will be drawn from Laredo — a border-port community that knows how to assess corporate operations. Travis County’s jury will be drawn from Austin — a tech-and-venture community that knows exactly what a 50-year-old founder of a major startup ecosystem was worth, in dollars and in human terms. Either venue is a strong home court for the family.
The Evidence Clock: Records That Are Disappearing Right Now
Aviation cases are won and lost on records. The carrier will tell you, through its public statements, that safety is its foundation. We believe them. We also believe that the company has a fleet of attorneys whose job is to make sure that the records telling the full story do not survive long enough for a jury to read them. That is not cynicism. It is how the system works — and it is the reason the days immediately following a crash are the most legally consequential days in the life of a case.
Here is what we are preserving, where it lives, and how fast it can disappear.
The cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and the flight data recorder (FDR). Both have been recovered and are at the NTSB lab. The CVR captures the last two hours of cockpit audio — every radio call to air traffic control, every conversation between the pilots, every warning tone in the cockpit. The FDR captures hundreds of parameters of the airplane’s performance — fuel flow, fuel quantity, engine temperatures, altitudes, airspeeds, control inputs. These are the heart of the case. The NTSB will produce a preliminary report within weeks and a final report within 12 to 24 months. Our role is to monitor the chain of custody, to ensure that the recordings are not “lost,” “erased,” or “inadvertently overwritten” between the lab and the courtroom. We have seen that happen — and we have seen it prevented, when preservation efforts begin early.
The fuel-loading records from San José del Cabo. Every fueling transaction produces a ticket — the fuel type, the gallons loaded, the time, the fueling technician, and the aircraft’s fuel state before and after. That ticket is generated by the FBO in Mexico. It is held by the FBO in Mexico. And under Mexican record-retention rules, it is more vulnerable to alteration and loss than its American counterpart. We send a preservation letter to the FBO and to the fuel supplier the day we are retained. If those records cannot be obtained voluntarily, we work with Mexican counsel to obtain them through international judicial-assistance procedures. Time matters here.
The NetJets Maintenance Management System (MMS) logs. NetJets, like every Part 135 operator, runs a digital maintenance system that tracks every inspection, every write-up, every part replacement, every deferred maintenance item on every aircraft in its fleet. The maintenance history of this specific airframe — the fuel-quantity indicating system, the fuel-tank sumps, the fuel line inspections, the engine fuel-nozzle servicing — is in that system. Maintenance records can be preserved, but they can also be overwritten under “normal” retention cycles if no preservation demand is in place. We send the demand letter before the cycle turns.
The dispatch and flight-following records. Under FAA Part 135, the operator must maintain records of every flight’s dispatch release, weight-and-balance calculation, weather briefing, route selection, and flight-following communications. These records show what the operator knew about the fuel state, the weather, the route, the diversion airports, and the alternate airport plan. They will tell us whether the dispatch decision was reasonable and whether the flight was being followed when the emergency began.
The crew duty and training records. The captain’s and first officer’s duty records for the 72 hours before the crash will tell us whether the crew was fatigued. Their training records — particularly fuel-management and emergency-procedure training — will tell us whether they had been drilled on the exact scenario they faced.
The operator’s internal safety reporting. Many Part 135 operators have internal “safety event” reporting systems that capture near-misses, pilot reports, and maintenance concerns. If this crew had previously reported fuel anomalies, fuel-quantity discrepancies, or fuel-system concerns on this airframe or any other, those reports are discoverable — and they are the smoking gun the company does not want a jury to read.
The passenger manifests and communications. Trip-planner communications, charter broker communications, the manifest of every person aboard, and the seating assignment — every one of these is a record that connects the deceased to the operation of the flight.
The 800-pound gorillas we do not yet have. We do not yet know what the NTSB’s preliminary report will say. We do not yet know whether the fuel was loaded properly. We do not yet know whether the fuel-quantity sensors were functioning. We do not yet know whether the crew reported a low-fuel state earlier in the flight and continued anyway. We do not yet know whether the operator had a fuel-saving incentive program that pushed crews to lighter fuel loads. Each of these unknowns becomes a known through discovery — and discovery moves at the speed of preserved records.
The Money: What This Case Is Worth
Every aviation-wrongful-death case we evaluate begins with the same question from the family: what is this worth? The honest answer is that we cannot tell you what your case is worth on day one — and any lawyer who tells you a number on day one is either guessing or selling. What we can do on day one is give you the framework, the categories, the limits, and the realistic range based on the publicly available facts. Then we refine the number as the records come in.
Based on the publicly reported facts — a 50-year-old deceased, an active and successful venture-capital career, a household with a spouse and children, a fatal crash on a Part 135 charter flight, and a defendant with effectively unlimited insurance coverage — the realistic valuation range for this case is $35,000,000 to $175,000,000. We are giving you that range up front because the company will give you a number designed to come in well below the bottom of it, and you deserve to know where the honest range actually sits before that conversation happens.
Here is how the number is built.
Economic damages — the foundation. For a 50-year-old venture capitalist running a major startup ecosystem, the loss of future earning capacity is the single largest component. An experienced forensic economist will build a model based on the deceased’s historical earnings, the carried-interest economics of the venture funds he was involved with, the equity in the companies he was personally invested in, the consulting and board fees he was earning, and the reasonable work-life expectancy to age 65 or 70. A conservative economist’s number on this profile will be in the $20 million to $60 million range before the loss-of-household-services and loss-of-inheritance components are added.
Pre-impact pain and suffering — the survival claim. Texas recognizes a separate survival claim for the conscious pain and suffering the deceased experienced between the moment the emergency began and the moment of impact. For an airplane that lost both engines on final approach and glided into a highway, that interval can be measured in minutes. In those minutes, the deceased was aware of the emergency. He knew the airplane was going down. The passengers beside him knew. The terror was real. Texas juries are not shy about valuing that, and Texas law allows them to do so.
Loss of companionship, society, and mental anguish. The surviving spouse, children, and parents are entitled to recover for the loss of the relationship itself. For a family whose breadwinner, mentor, and emotional center is gone, this is the part of the case that no economist can fully capture — and the part that a jury is most likely to feel.
Punitive damages — the wild card. If discovery reveals that the carrier knew about a fuel-system defect and deferred maintenance, that the operator had a pattern of fueling decisions that put crews in marginal-fuel situations, that safety reports were suppressed, or that the carrier put profitability ahead of passenger safety in a way that shocks the conscience of the community, Texas law permits the jury to award punitive damages on top of compensatory damages. Punitive damages exist to punish and deter. They are not awarded in every case, but they are awarded in cases where the conduct crosses a line.
What the company will offer first. The first offer from the carrier’s insurer will almost certainly be a low seven-figure number — sized before the records are produced, before the autopsy is final, before the economist’s model is built, and before the jury sees the family in person. The first offer is a probe, not a posture. It tells you what the company thinks you do not know.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. We cite the firm’s record of recovering tens of millions of dollars in catastrophic-injury and wrongful-death cases — including the firm’s recoveries in commercial-truck, brain-injury, and amputation cases — as evidence that we know how to value these claims and how to push them to verdict when the offer does not match the harm.
The Insurance Playbook: Three Moves They Will Make This Week
A fatal commercial-aviation case produces three predictable moves from the carrier and its insurer within the first two weeks. We name them in advance because the counter is in the naming.
Play 1 — The “we just want to help” recorded statement. A claims adjuster — often female-voiced, often with a calm East Coast cadence, often calling within 48 hours — will introduce herself as a representative of the operator or its insurer. She will express sympathy. She will say the company wants to “make this right.” She will then ask, on a recorded line, for a narrative of the day, a description of the deceased’s medical history, an estimate of the family’s finances, and a statement about whether the deceased had ever complained about the operator or about flying in general. That call is evidence. It is structured to produce statements about the deceased’s “health,” “prior flying experiences,” and “state of mind” that the carrier’s lawyers will then use to reduce the value of the case. Counter: Do not give the statement. Refer the caller to our office. We will handle every communication in writing, after we have had time to understand the facts.
Play 2 — The fast check with a release on the back. Within 30 days, the family will receive a check — sometimes a large one — accompanied by a release that ends all claims against the carrier and every related entity, forever. The release will be printed in small type. The amount will look generous in the fog of grief. The math behind it will assume that the case settles for the fuel-loading records that exist today, the maintenance history that has not yet been subpoenaed, and the loss of a 50-year-old’s earnings projected at a national-median wage rather than at the venture-capital wage he actually earned. Counter: Read the release with us before you sign anything. Read our page on insurance claim disputes to see how often the “generous” first offer turns out to be a fraction of the case’s actual value. We have seen seven-figure checks offered on eight-figure cases. The check is a settlement. The release is a tombstone.
Play 3 — The “you were partly at fault” anchor. Within 60 days, the carrier’s lawyers will float an allocation of comparative fault — sometimes as low as 1%, sometimes as high as 20% — to support a reduction in the eventual settlement. The theory will vary: the deceased knew the airplane had been delayed; the deceased chose a fractional operator with a maintenance history; the deceased had a pre-existing medical condition; the deceased should have known that the route was a “risk.” None of these theories hold up under Texas law, but they are floated anyway, because the existence of an allocation argument in the file gives the defense room to negotiate downward. Counter: Comparative fault is a doctrine of the case, not a doctrine of public relations. Texas law assigns fault based on what the parties actually did. The carrier owed the duty. The pilots owed the duty. The maintenance program owed the duty. The deceased owed nothing except the decision to board a plane he was told was safe. We meet the comparative-fault play with the doctrine, the experts, and the records that prove what the carrier’s argument is actually worth.
There is a fourth play that you will not see as a play, but it is the most dangerous one — silence. The carrier will say nothing for months while it builds its defense. The NTSB investigation will take a year or more. During that year, the family will receive almost no information from the carrier about what happened, why it happened, or what is being done. That silence is not neutral. It is the company’s strategy of letting time and grief do the negotiating for it. We break that silence with preservation letters, public-record requests, witness interviews, and depositions the moment we are retained.
How We Build the Proof: From Preservation Letter to Verdict
A wrongful-death aviation case is built the same way every time — but the quality of the build is what separates a real recovery from a discounted settlement. Here is the order of operations we run at Attorney911 when a family calls us in the days after a fatal crash.
Week 1 — Preservation and stabilization. We send spoliation letters to the operator, the manufacturer, the FBO in Mexico, the fuel supplier, the trip planner, and the broker who arranged the flight. We request the immediate preservation of every category of record listed above. We engage an aviation-accident reconstruction firm to be on the ground at the wreckage site if the NTSB permits. We file the probate petition to appoint the personal representative. We secure the death certificate and put the medical records custodian on notice. We do not yet file suit. Filing suit this week would be premature and would tip off the defense before the records are preserved.
Weeks 2 to 8 — Investigation and expert retention. We retain a former NTSB investigator as our consulting expert. We retain an aviation-fuel specialist to model the fuel state of the aircraft at every phase of the flight. We retain a human-factors specialist to evaluate crew performance. We retain a forensic economist to begin the lost-earnings model. We obtain the autopsy report and engage a forensic pathologist to interpret it. We obtain the air-traffic-control recordings and the airport’s emergency-response records. We obtain the weather data for the route and the time of day.
Months 3 to 9 — Petition, discovery, and depositions. We file the wrongful-death petition in the appropriate Texas district court — either Webb County or Travis County, depending on venue analysis. The defendant responds with a general denial and affirmative defenses, including comparative fault. We serve document requests and interrogatories. We depose the captain, the first officer, the director of operations, the director of maintenance, the dispatch supervisor who released the flight, and the corporate representative of the operator under Rule 199.2(b) of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure. We obtain the flight-data-recorder and cockpit-voice-recorder downloads through formal channels. We depose the manufacturer representative on the fuel-system design and the fuel-quantity indicating system.
Months 9 to 18 — Expert reports and mediation. We exchange expert reports. We mediate the case under the auspices of a Texas district court, often with a retired judge or senior mediator. Most aviation wrongful-death cases resolve at mediation — but they resolve at a number that reflects the proof we have built, not the silence we broke. If the mediation does not produce a fair resolution, we set the case for trial.
Trial. A Texas aviation wrongful-death case tried to a Laredo or Austin jury has every ingredient a plaintiff needs: a sympathetic decedent, a corporate defendant with deep pockets, a clear regulatory duty breached, and a record showing what the duty required and what the company did instead. We try these cases. We do not guarantee outcomes — past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes — but we do guarantee that we will put every piece of proof we have built in front of a jury if the carrier does not pay what the case is worth.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who can file a wrongful-death lawsuit in Texas after a plane crash?
Under the Texas Wrongful Death Act, codified at Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Chapter 71, the right to sue belongs to the surviving spouse, the children, and the parents of the deceased. If there is no spouse, child, or parent, the estate’s personal representative may bring the action on behalf of the heirs. A separate survival action — for the deceased’s own pre-death damages — is brought by the personal representative on behalf of the estate.
How long do we have to file?
Texas generally gives a family two years from the date of death to file a wrongful-death action under the state’s personal-injury statute of limitations, with very limited exceptions. Survival claims have their own timing rules. These deadlines are not flexible. If you let the two-year clock run, you can lose the case forever — regardless of how strong the evidence is. Call us now. Call us at 1-888-ATTY-911.
What is the case worth?
Every case is different. For a 50-year-old venture capitalist killed on a Part 135 charter flight, with a corporate defendant that has the resources of Berkshire Hathaway behind it, the realistic valuation range — based on the publicly available facts — is $35,000,000 to $175,000,000. The exact number depends on the records, the autopsy findings, the economist’s model, the venue, the jury, and the evidence we develop in discovery. We will not give you a final number on day one. We will give you the framework on day one and a refined number as the proof develops.
Will the case settle?
Most aviation wrongful-death cases resolve before trial, usually at mediation. Whether the case settles, and at what number, depends almost entirely on the quality of the proof we have built by the time we sit down at the table. A carrier that sees a strong preservation record, a clean autopsy, an economist’s model showing tens of millions in lost earnings, and a jury pool that will be drawn from the deceased’s home community — that carrier settles. A carrier that sees a family that has not preserved records, has not engaged experts, and is willing to accept the first low offer — that carrier waits. We build the case for the first kind of carrier.
What if my loved one was partly at fault?
Texas follows a modified comparative-fault rule with a 51% bar. If the deceased is found to be 50% or less at fault, recovery is reduced by that percentage. If the deceased is found to be 51% or more at fault, recovery is barred entirely. In a passenger-on-a-charter-flight case, the deceased’s share of fault is almost always zero. The duty to fly the airplane safely belonged to the operator and the crew — not to the passenger. The carrier will try to assign some share of fault anyway. We answer that argument with the law and the records.
What about the NTSB investigation? Can we use the NTSB report?
The NTSB’s final report is admissible in a civil case under federal law. The NTSB’s probable-cause finding is also admissible. The NTSB’s interim and preliminary reports, however, are not admissible for the purpose of proving fault — but they often contain information that helps us identify witnesses and records. We work with the NTSB investigation, we monitor the chain of custody on the CVR and FDR, and we obtain the report when it issues.
Do we have to file in Texas?
Venue is likely proper in either Webb County (where the crash occurred) or Travis County (where the deceased lived and worked). Both are strong venues. Webb County is the seat of Laredo — a border-port community that understands corporate operations and that knows how to assess a fractional-jet operator. Travis County is the seat of Austin — the deceased’s home community, the venture-capital community, and the community that knew what he was worth. We will analyze venue carefully and file where the family has the strongest home-court advantage.
How much does it cost to hire Attorney911?
We work on a contingency fee. No fee unless we win. Before trial, the contingency is 33.33% of the recovery. If the case proceeds to trial and we obtain a verdict or judgment in your favor, the contingency is 40%. Costs of litigation — filing fees, expert fees, deposition transcripts, mediator fees — are advanced by the firm and reimbursed from the recovery at the end. The consultation is free, the call is confidential, and there is no obligation to retain us. Call 1-888-ATTY-911.
How long will the case take?
A Texas aviation wrongful-death case typically resolves in 12 to 30 months from the date of filing, depending on the venue, the complexity of the liability proof, and whether the case settles at mediation or proceeds to trial. Cases against large corporate defendants with sophisticated defense counsel often take longer. We move as quickly as the proof allows, and we keep the family informed of every significant development.
Can the family speak to the media?
We strongly recommend against any media interviews until preservation is complete and counsel has had a chance to understand the full picture. Anything the family says publicly can be used by the carrier’s lawyers to shape the narrative of the case. The family’s privacy and dignity matter more than any media cycle. We handle all media inquiries on the family’s behalf.
What if the deceased had a life-insurance policy?
Life insurance is independent of a wrongful-death claim. Life insurance proceeds are paid to the named beneficiaries regardless of fault. A wrongful-death claim is a separate action against the operator, the manufacturer, and any other at-fault parties. The two do not offset each other. The family is entitled to both.
What about the other passengers — the three teenagers and two pilots?
They are potential witnesses. They are also potential plaintiffs in their own right. Their survival does not reduce the family’s wrongful-death recovery. Under Texas law, the existence of other injured parties does not diminish the compensation owed to the family of the deceased. The carrier owes each person on board a separate duty of care. We may coordinate with counsel for the survivors — that is a strategic decision we make on a case-by-case basis.
What is the very first thing the family should do tonight?
Three things. First, do not give a recorded statement to anyone from the carrier or its insurer. Second, do not sign anything that arrives in the mail or by email. Third, call 1-888-ATTY-911 and ask for Ralph Manginello or Lupe Peña. The line is staffed 24/7 with a live person. The consultation is free. The call is confidential. We will be on the ground in Laredo and Austin this week.
Why Attorney911: The Trial Team That Takes These Cases
We are not the largest firm in Texas. We are a trial firm that takes aviation, catastrophic-injury, and commercial-vehicle cases — the kinds of cases that require the firm to actually go to war with the company that caused the harm. We have spent the last 24-plus years building the practice, the trial experience, and the relationships with the aviation experts, the forensic economists, and the former NTSB investigators that these cases require.
Ralph P. Manginello is the firm’s managing partner. He has been a Texas-licensed trial attorney since November 6, 1998 — over 27 years — and is admitted to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, including that court’s bankruptcy court. He earned his J.D. from South Texas College of Law Houston and his B.A. in Journalism and Public Relations from the University of Texas at Austin, and he is a member of the State Bar of Texas, the Houston Bar Association, the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association, the Texas Trial Lawyers Association, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the Pro Bono College of the State Bar of Texas, the Trial Lawyers Achievement Association as a Million Dollar Member, and the National Association of Italian Lawyers. Ralph was a journalist before he was a lawyer, and that background is part of why our cases are built the way they are built — with records, with documents, and with the kind of disciplined narrative that holds up in front of a jury. He has led the firm’s recovery of tens of millions of dollars in catastrophic-injury and wrongful-death cases, including recoveries in commercial-truck, brain-injury, and amputation cases. You can read more about Ralph on his attorney page.
Lupe Peña is the firm’s associate attorney and the other voice you will hear on this case. Lupe is a former insurance-defense attorney — he spent years working inside a national defense firm, in the rooms where adjusters and their valuation software decided how to price, delay, and deny claims exactly like yours. He now sits on your side of that table. Lupe’s insider experience is one of the firm’s core advantages: he knows what the defense is going to do before the defense does it, because he used to do it. Lupe is fluent in Spanish — he conducts full client consultations in Spanish without an interpreter — and is a third-generation Texan with roots to the King Ranch. He has been Texas-bar licensed since 2012 (over 13 years) and is admitted to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. You can read more about Lupe on his attorney page.
Together, Ralph and Lupe represent the firm’s approach: a senior trial lawyer with the experience to read a courtroom and a former defense lawyer with the insider knowledge to dismantle the carrier’s playbook. The firm is built around aviation, trucking, brain injury, and wrongful-death cases — the cases where the other side has a corporate defense team and the family needs one too. You can see the full list of our practice areas on our site.
The firm works on contingency. We do not get paid unless we win your case. The contingency is 33.33% before trial and 40% if the case proceeds through trial. Costs are advanced by the firm and reimbursed from the recovery. The consultation is free. The line is answered 24/7. The first call is with a live member of our staff — not an answering service, not a call center, not a chatbot. If we are not the right firm for your case, we will tell you. If we are the right firm, we will be on the ground in Webb County and Travis County this week.
What to Do Tonight
You came to this page looking for answers. Here are the answers that matter tonight.
The case is real. The liability is going to be provable through the cockpit voice recorder, the flight data recorder, the fuel records from Mexico, the maintenance history of the airframe, the dispatch records of the flight, the training records of the crew, and the operator’s internal safety reporting. Texas law gives you the right to recover the full economic value of the life that was lost — uncapped. The operator behind this flight is a Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary with effectively unlimited insurance coverage. The venue is favorable. The evidence is preservable, if you start now.
The company is already moving. The insurer has already assigned a claims team. The defense lawyers have already been retained. The first call to your family — the warm, recorded, “we just want to help” call — has probably already been scheduled. The first check, with a release on the back, is probably already being drafted.
You need to move first. The preservation letters go out the day you call us. The probate petition is filed the same week. The experts are retained the same month. The case is filed before the two-year statute of limitations runs. And the carrier learns — through counsel, through preservation letters, and through a filed lawsuit — that this family is represented, prepared, and unwilling to accept a discounted settlement as the resolution of a life that mattered.
Call us tonight. 1-888-ATTY-911 (1-888-288-9911). The line is open. The consultation is free. The call is confidential. We answer 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Hablamos Español.
If you would like to begin the conversation in writing rather than by phone, you can reach us through our contact page or review our practice areas to see the full scope of the firm’s work.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. This page is legal information, not legal advice. The application of the law to your specific facts requires a confidential consultation with one of our attorneys.