Texans fly every day: business and private jets out of Austin, San Antonio, and Dallas, charter flights, small planes at regional airports, crop-dusters over farmland, helicopters serving the oilfield and the coast, and air ambulances moving critically injured patients. When one of those flights goes wrong, the results are often catastrophic injuries or loss of life.
Families are left with urgent questions: what happened, who is responsible, and what happens to the people who depended on someone who never came home. A lawsuit cannot undo a crash. It can establish responsibility, secure the compensation the law allows, and give your family an independent way to find out what happened.
Why Aviation Accident Cases Need Experienced Counsel
Aviation cases are not ordinary injury claims. They involve federal flight rules (including 14 C.F.R. Part 91 for private flights and Part 135 for many charter operations), a separate federal safety investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), technical evidence, and often several companies that each played a different role in the flight.
Ownership, operational control, maintenance responsibility, and insurance coverage are separate questions. The company whose name is on the aircraft registration is not automatically the company that ran the flight. Getting those answers right early matters.
Attorney Jacob Alford has personally handled aviation-accident cases. We treat every crash as a trial case from day one: we run our own investigation alongside the NTSB, build claims against every company that played a role in the flight, and follow the evidence rather than the first explanation offered.
Call 210-512-2222 for a free consultation.
How Injured Texan Investigates an Aviation Crash
The other side starts collecting wreckage, maintenance records, flight data, and air traffic control audio the day of the crash. The first weeks decide what evidence survives, so we start immediately. Here is how we work:
- Lock down the evidence. We send written preservation demands to the owner, operator, maintenance shops, and their insurers covering the wreckage, engines, propellers or rotor systems, avionics, and any device that may hold flight data, such as GPS units, tablets, and engine monitors.
- Gather the records. We pursue maintenance logbooks and work orders, pilot training and duty records, charter and management contracts, ADS-B flight-tracking data, air traffic control audio and radar data, and weather records.
- Work alongside the NTSB, not against it. We follow the federal investigation, including cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and flight data recorder (FDR) information as it is released through the NTSB process, without interfering with it.
- Protect the wreckage inspection. When the NTSB releases the wreckage, we push for any examination to happen under a written protocol with every side present, so no part is altered or tested before it can be documented.
- Bring in the right people. We work with independent pilots, engineers, crash reconstruction experts, maintenance investigators, and human-factors consultants who read the evidence and reconstruct the flight.
- Find out who controlled the flight. We trace ownership, operational control, maintenance responsibility, and insurance, because the registered owner is often not the company that actually ran the flight.
- Document your family’s loss. We work with financial and economic consultants to measure lost earnings, support, and household services, and we tell the story of the person your family lost.
Aviation Accident Cases We Handle
- Private and business jet crashes
- Charter flight crashes (Part 135 operations)
- Small plane and general aviation crashes
- Helicopter crashes, including tour, oilfield, and medical flights
- Air ambulance crashes
- Crop-duster and agricultural aviation accidents
- Flight school and training flight accidents
- Skydiving plane and sightseeing tour flight accidents
- Commercial airline injuries and deaths
- People on the ground hurt by a falling aircraft or debris, and airport and ground-crew workers
- Wrongful death caused by an aviation accident
Who May Be Responsible for a Plane or Helicopter Crash?
We look past the pilot. Depending on the evidence, responsibility may rest with one or more of these parties:
- The operator and anyone exercising operational control over the flight, including planning, dispatch, and training decisions
- The pilot and the pilot’s employer
- The aircraft owner, depending on its actual role in the flight
- Maintenance and repair providers responsible for inspections, repairs, and records
- Aircraft, engine, and component manufacturers, for defects in design, manufacturing, or warnings
- Charter brokers and aircraft management companies, depending on what they actually did
- Airports and fixed-base operators, for fueling, ground handling, or runway and facility hazards
- Air traffic control or other government entities, where the law allows, under special notice and claim rules such as the Federal Tort Claims Act
When a part fails, the manufacturer answers for it. Product liability claims deserve special attention. A failed engine part, a faulty fuel system, defective avionics, or an inadequate warning in the flight manual can make a manufacturer responsible even when the pilot did everything right. Product claims also can reach companies with far more insurance than a small operator. Federal law (the General Aviation Revitalization Act) generally limits claims against manufacturers of general aviation aircraft and parts that are more than 18 years old, but the 18-year clock starts over for a replacement part that is alleged to have caused the crash, so the age of the airplane alone does not end the analysis.
These are investigative categories, not accusations. Weather alone is rarely a complete explanation of legal responsibility, and a crash by itself does not prove that any particular pilot, company, or manufacturer was negligent. The contracts, operating arrangements, technical evidence, and governing law decide which claims are worth pursuing.
The NTSB Investigation vs. Your Family’s Claim
The NTSB investigation does not replace your family’s claim, and its final report generally cannot be used to prove fault in your lawsuit.
The NTSB investigates to determine probable cause and to prevent future accidents. Its investigations are fact-finding proceedings with no adverse parties, and they do not decide civil liability or award compensation (49 C.F.R. § 831.4). By federal law, no part of an NTSB Board report about an accident may be admitted into evidence or used in a civil action for damages arising from that accident (49 U.S.C. § 1154(b)). Factual information gathered during the investigation may be treated differently, which is one reason an independent investigation matters.
You do not need to wait for the NTSB’s final report, which can take a year or more, before talking to a lawyer or preserving evidence. Private investigation must respect the NTSB’s control of the wreckage and the accident site, so your case should be built alongside the federal process, not by interfering with it.
What Evidence Matters After an Aviation Accident
Families can help by keeping records they already have. Do not try to retrieve wreckage or contact witnesses on your own.
- Booking confirmations, charter agreements, itineraries, invoices, and payment records
- Emails, texts, and other messages about the flight, aircraft, operator, or travel plans
- Original photos and videos, with the original files and metadata
- Letters, emails, and calls from insurers, operators, owners, or claims representatives
- Records of family relationships, financial support, employment, benefits, and expenses caused by the loss
Leave the rest to us. Maintenance logs, pilot records, flight data, ATC recordings, and company contracts are in other people’s hands, and we go get them (see how we investigate). Flight-tracking apps and social media can offer leads, but a social-media reconstruction is not an accident investigation.
What You Can Recover
Depending on the facts and the law that applies, an aviation accident claim in Texas may include compensation for medical expenses, lost wages and earning capacity, pain and suffering, mental anguish, physical impairment, and disfigurement. When a crash takes a life:
- Texas wrongful death claims belong to the surviving spouse, children, and parents. They can include lost financial support, lost care and services, loss of companionship, and mental anguish (Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 71.004).
- Texas survival claims are brought for the estate and cover what the person who died could have claimed, such as conscious pain and mental anguish before death, which in some cases can include the terror of the moments before impact, medical bills, and funeral expenses (§ 71.021).
- Exemplary (punitive) damages are available only in limited circumstances under Texas law.
If the crash happened in another state, that state’s law may apply instead, and it can be very different. Florida, for example, requires a personal representative to bring a single wrongful death action for the survivors and the estate, with its own rules on who can recover and what (Fla. Stat. §§ 768.20–768.21). No responsible lawyer values a case from a generic number. Value depends on the person, the family, the evidence, and the governing law.
Crashes Outside Texas or Flights Abroad
A crash outside Texas does not end a Texas family’s rights. Texas law allows claims for deaths and injuries that happen in another state or country, applying whatever law fits the facts (Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 71.031). Where to file, whom to sue, and which law governs are separate questions. The departure airport alone does not answer them.
International flights add another layer. The Montreal Convention, a treaty that sets rules for carrier liability, where suit can be filed, and a two-year time limit, may apply when a flight is international carriage for pay, or certain carriage by an air transport business. An international itinerary does not make the treaty apply to every private flight, and not every business jet is a commercial charter. The nature of the flight and the carrier has to be established first.
Recent Crash: Austin-to-Bahamas Learjet (Nov. 1, 2026)
As of November 2, 2026 (afternoon, Central Time), according to the NTSB, FAA, and local officials:
On November 1, a Learjet 60 (N722BD) flying from Austin-Bergstrom International Airport to North Eleuthera, Bahamas, crashed at about 12:50 p.m. ET near Cresthaven and Greenacres in Palm Beach County, Florida. All nine people aboard, two crew members and seven passengers, died. About 600 residents were displaced. The NTSB is leading the investigation with FAA assistance.
The NTSB said preliminarily that the crew reported icing, turbulence, and precipitation at 35,000 feet before a mayday call and an overspeed, and that there was “some evidence” the aircraft broke up before impact. No cause has been determined. Details may change; see the NTSB and FAA for updates.
Why Texas Families Choose Injured Texan
Aviation cases are among the most complex in personal injury law, and the companies on the other side have lawyers and investigators working from the first day. So do we.
- Our own investigation. We do not wait for the NTSB’s final report, which cannot be used in your lawsuit anyway.
- Every responsible party. Operator, pilot, maintenance shop, charter broker, and manufacturer, including product liability claims.
- Built for trial from day one. We prepare every case as if it will be tried, because that is what moves insurers.
- Plain English. Aviation cases are technical. We explain what the evidence shows, what it means for your family, and what comes next, without jargon.
- Family first. We handle the insurers, the paperwork, and the estate questions so your family can focus on each other.
Based in San Marcos, we represent families statewide, are available 24/7, and never charge an attorney’s fee unless we win.
Read what clients say in our testimonials, or see all of our practice areas.