By Jake Goldstein-Street
Herald Writer
SNOHOMISH — The widow of an aerospace engineer killed in the crash of a single-engine plane in Snohomish in 2022 sued the manufacturers Tuesday, alleging the company should have known there was an issue with the aircraft before a wing fell off mid-flight.
Nathan Precup, 33, and three other men on the flight died when the right wing of the Cessna 208B EX Caravan fell off on a test flight from Harvey Field, causing the plane to crash about 2 miles east of the airport, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.
Raisbeck Engineering, headquartered in Seattle, had been testing the plane’s aerodynamic drag reduction system, meant to make the plane go faster and use less fuel.
For three days prior to the crash, Raisbeck crew members tested the drag reduction system, according to a preliminary report from the transportation safety board. On the first day, they flew for just over an hour to get familiar with the plane. On the second day, they flew over 4½ hours. And on the third, their testing was cut short when a crew member fell ill.
The next day, Nov. 18, 2022, Precup and his colleagues departed from Renton at 9:25 a.m. to finish off collecting the baseline data they were supposed to get the day before.
The pilots completed test maneuvers nearly 10,000 feet above Harvey Field near Snohomish. But as they tried what was likely their second-to-last maneuver of the day, the airplane broke into pieces, witnesses told investigators.
The wreckage was dispersed across more than 1,800 feet of farmland. The two pilots, a flight engineer and Precup, the instrumentation engineer, died.
The two pilots were identified as Scott Brenneman, 52, of Roy, in Pierce County, and David Newton, 67, of Wichita, Kansas. The flight engineer was Nate Lachendro, 49, of Gig Harbor.
The National Transportation Safety Board hadn’t released its final report on the crash, as of this week.
The defendants in the lawsuit filed by Precup’s widow in King County Superior Court are Textron Aviation, the Kansas-based parent company of Cessna; Ace Aviation, a plane maintenance and inspection firm based in Renton; and Raisbeck Engineering.
“Companies that manufacture and maintain aircraft that fly over our communities must ensure the aircraft can withstand normal flight operations,” Ari Friedman, a lawyer for the plaintiff, said in a press release. “When that failure costs lives, those companies must take responsibility for the devastation they cause.”
A spokesperson for Textron Aviation didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday. Nor did representatives from Raisbeck Engineering or Ace Aviation.
On his website, Precup noted he had a master’s degree in aeronautics and astronautics from the University of Washington. He notes he left his job as a flight test engineer to do something else: work on telescopes in Antarctica.
“It is not hard to get me excited about the world around me, there is inspiration around every corner,” Precup wrote, noting he enjoyed hiking, climbing and sailing.
He wrote that he was a few flight hours away from getting a private pilot certificate, an achievement that was a top priority when he returned from Antarctica.
The families of Lachendro and Brenneman sued Textron last year. Their cases are set to go to trial in June in King County. In court filings, Textron Aviation denied all allegations brought by Brenneman’s survivors.
Jake Goldstein-Street: 425-339-3439; jake.goldstein-street@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @GoldsteinStreet.
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