- A plane owned by Google cofounder Sergey Brin was involved in a deadly crash in May 2023.
- The families of the two pilots alleged negligence by Brin's team.
- The plane was due to fly from California to Hawaii, but its fuel equipment malfunctioned: lawsuit.
Google cofounder Sergey Brin is facing a second lawsuit over a plane crash off the coast of California in May 2023 in which two pilots died.
In July, the family of pilot Dean Rushfeldt filed suit against Brin, his private family office Bayshore Global, Google, and a number of related companies in Santa Clara Superior Court, alleging multiple counts of negligence. It comes after the widow of Lance Maclean filed a lawsuit against Brin and Bayshore in February, making similar claims.
The latest complaint, which has not been previously reported on, represents an escalation in the legal travails facing the 51-year-old billionaire and his family office, and offers a rare window into the inner workings of private staff who work for ultra-wealthy people.
A spokesperson for Brin did not respond to a request for comment. In February, a spokesperson for Brin's family office shared this statement: "We are deeply saddened by the loss of the crew piloting the De Havilland DHC6-400 Twin Otter airplane, and our sympathies remain with the families."
A deadly crash, and alleged mistakes
On May 20, 2023, Rushfeldt and Maclean were enlisted to fly the plane from Santa Rosa, California to Honolulu, with an ultimate destination of Fiji.
It was outfitted with a fuel bladder designed to extend its range but the equipment malfunctioned and it ran out of fuel around 30 miles off the coast of California, according to the court filings. The plane crashed into the Pacific Ocean, and Rushfeldt and Maclean were found dead inside, but their bodies could not be recovered before the plane sank, the lawsuits say.
Rushfeldt's family alleged in their complaint that Bayshore Global and a related corporate entity Seafly made numerous errors in the maintenance of the aircraft. The fuel bladder equipment was wrongly installed "from memory" rather than by following a checklist, proper logs of the alterations were not recorded, and the correct certificates were not obtained, the legal documents alleged.
The latest lawsuit from July also charges Brin and his family office of tortious interference with a dead body, alleging that his team promised to recover Rushfeldt's body "while secretly plotting never to do so."
Brin's lawyers tried to dismiss earlier suit
The previous lawsuit, filed in February by the widow of copilot Lance Maclean, also alleged that Brin's seaplane crashed as the result of an improperly installed modification.
That lawsuit, which also named Google and two contract companies that Brin's family office used to maintain the plane, similarly accused Brin of hiding evidence by obstructing a recovery attempt.
"Brin is among the richest people in the world," lawyers for Maclean's widow wrote at the time in legal filings. "If he wanted to recover the aircraft and the remains of those lost, it would be done."
The Maclean suit is further advanced than the Rushfeldt suit, and Brin's lawyers have attempted to dismiss its claims on several grounds — including that any state law claims related to recovering the body are preempted by the Death on the High Seas Act. Two defendants, Google and an individual, were dismissed from the case in July.
Google cofounder back in the spotlight
Brin, Bayshore Global, Google and the other defendants have yet to respond to the Rushfeldt case. Google and the other parties named in the lawsuit did not respond to BI's requests for comment in recent days.
Meanwhile, Brin has been back in the public spotlight.
Along with his cofounder Larry Page, Brin stepped back from Google in 2019, turning his attention to other pursuits such as his airship company Lighter Than Air Research. However, the AI boom brought the billionaire out of retirement last year to help Google build its Gemini AI model.
Brin has started showing up at Google's internal all-hands meetings, and even gave a rare interview to a gaggle of press at the company's developer conference in May.