Son of 2 Plane Crash Victims Sues Estate of Pilot
The son of a Laguna Beach couple killed in a plane crash last June as they headed for a boating vacation in the Cayman Islands has sued the estate of the pilot, contending that negligence caused the crash.
Reginald Jones, son of 57-year-old Carolyn Speers and stepson of Dallas Speers Jr., 66, is seeking $1 million in the wrongful-death suit, filed Thursday in Orange County Superior Court.
The lawsuit alleges that the pilot, Jack George of Newport Beach, negligently maintained and operated the twin-engine Beachcraft Barron BE-55, which crashed June 7 in an orange grove near Wauchula, Fla. during heavy thunderstorms.
George and his companion, Colleen O’Neill, 50, of Costa Mesa, also died in the crash.
The Speers, who were longtime friends of George, were flying with him for the first time. The pilot had 40 years of flying experience.
Federal investigators said the plane was flying through heavy thunderstorms when it apparently began to disintegrate. Witnesses said they saw pieces of the plane falling before it slammed into a ditch between orange groves, investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board said after the crash.
Wreckage from the plane was strewn across a 2 1/2-mile area in Hardee County. No injuries were reported on the ground.
At the time, investigators said they were focusing on the storms as a possible cause of the crash.
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