Flight School, Airline Face Lawsuit After Fatal Training Accident

Piper Seminole crash occurred during the pilot's first flight in his multiengine training program.

Wednesday, January 22, 2025 at 01:05 PM ET

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The family of a flight student who died in a 2023 Piper Seminole crash in Oregon has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the flight school where he was training. [Credit: Sergei Tokmakov/ Pixabay]

Key Takeaways:

The family of Barrett Bevacqua, a 22-year-old flight student who died in a 2023 Piper Seminole crash in Oregon, has filed a $27 million wrongful death lawsuit against his flight school, Hillsboro Aero Academy, and affiliated airlines.
The lawsuit alleges the instructor's negligence caused the aircraft to slow below safe minimum speeds, leading to an aerodynamic stall and spin during Bevacqua's first multiengine training flight.
The NTSB preliminary report notes that initial multiengine training commonly includes maneuvers like slow flight and stall demonstrations, and witnesses observed the aircraft spinning in a near-vertical descent.
Multiengine aircraft are highly susceptible to spins during stalls, particularly with an engine not producing power, and recovering from such spins is challenging due to rapid altitude loss.

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The family of a 22-year-old flight student who died in a 2023 Piper Seminole crash in Oregon has filed a lawsuit against the flight school where he was doing his training.

The $27 million wrongful death lawsuit filed last week in Multnomah County, Oregon, by the family of Barrett Bevacqua names Hillsboro Aero Academy along with Alaska Airlines, Horizon Air, and its training arm Ascend Academy, in connection with the crash of the twin engine aircraft in October 2023, Portland’s KGW-TV reported. Both Bevacqua and the instructor were killed when the aircraft came down vertically into an occupied house in Newberg. A back seat passenger was severely injured. No one on the ground was hurt.

Meg Godlewski

Meg Godlewski has been an aviation journalist for more than 24 years and a CFI for more than 20 years. If she is not flying or teaching aviation, she is writing about it. Meg is a founding member of the Pilot Proficiency Center at EAA AirVenture and excels at the application of simulation technology to flatten the learning curve. Follow Meg on Twitter @2Lewski.