Estate of pilot killed in Boulder County plane crash sues aviation maintenance firm

BOULDER COUNTY — The family and estate of Steven Chase, a pilot who died alongside three passengers in a 2022 plane crash in the Boulder County foothills, filed a wrongful death lawsuit this week against the company responsible for maintaining and inspecting the plane. 

The 1972 Cessna T337G crashed on the morning of July 22, 2022, on the 11000 block of Lefthand Canyon Drive, killing the 32-year-old pilot who worked for charter flight company Bluebird Aviation LLC, Sandra Kirby, a 48-year-old mother, and her children Ian Kirby, 17, and Amanda Kirby, 13, who were vacationing the Rocky Mountain region from Louisiana. The group was on an aerial sightseeing tour that took off — and was expected to return to — Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport in Broomfield.

The lawsuit, filed in Boulder County District Court, accused Mountain Air Aviation Inc., which is based out of RMMA, of “failure to maintain an airworthy aircraft.”

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According to the complaint, “the aircraft suffered an engine failure, which required Steven Chase to initiate an emergency return to the Front Range.” As Chase “was executing an emergency 180-degree, standard rate, turn towards the Front Range, the aircraft suffered a catastrophic failure which resulted in the aircraft becoming uncontrollable. Shortly thereafter, the Aircraft impacted terrain.”

The lawsuit argues that Chase was not at fault for the crash and that Mountain Air Aviation, representatives of which did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday, failed to “exercise reasonable care in the hiring and supervision of its employees,” and therefore failed to “ensure that (employees were) keeping the aircraft properly maintained.”

Family members of the Kirbys sued Chase’s employer Bluebird and another Colorado flight company VX Aviation LLC in a wrongful-death case last year. 

That Boulder County District Court lawsuit claims that the “defendants were negligent by failing to maintain the airplane, failing to train the pilot, failing to adequately supervise the pilot, failure to perform routine inspections on the airplane, failing to operate the airplane in a safe manner, failure to land the airplane in a safe manner. Defendants also failed to comply with applicable government, regulatory, and industry standards, statutes, ordinances, and requirements.”

In court filings, the defendants in the Kirby case have denied the allegations and requested dismissal of the lawsuit.

The lawsuits are Paul Chase et al v. Mountain Air Aviation Inc, case number 2024CV030584, filed July 8, 2024 in Boulder County District Court; Joseph Kirby et al v. Bluebird Aviation LLC and VX Aviation LLC, case number 2023CV30331 filed May 10, 2023 in Boulder County District Court.