Greg Biffle’s Mother-In-Law Says She Received An Emergency Alert From Her Daughter’s Phone When Their Plane Crashed

I can’t even imagine.

There’s no doubt that the families are just beginning to process their grief after seven people, including NASCAR legend Greg Biffle, were killed in a plane crash at Statesville Regional Airport on Thursday.

Along with Biffle, the victims included his wife, Cristina Grossu; their 5-year old son Ryder; his 14-year old daughter from a previous marriage, Emma; Dennis Dutton and his son, Jack; and Craig Wadsworth.

The private Cessna Citation II with tail number N257BW crashed just minutes after taking off from the airport. According to flight tracking data, the plane took off at around 10:06 AM eastern time from runway 10, but just minutes later made a turn back towards the airport in an apparent attempt to land on runway 28.

The plane was headed to Sarasota, Florida to visit Cleetus McFarland, who was hosting his Christmas Tree Drags race at Bradenton Motorsports Park on December 20, before heading to the Bahamas later in the evening. 

It’s still early, so investigators are still working to piece together what happened during the ill-fated flight. During a press conference yesterday, the NTSB revealed that they still haven’t been able to verify who was flying the plane, and that they were unaware of any mayday call that was made that would signal an emergency.

But Biffle’s mother-in-law, Cathy Grossu, says those on the plane were aware that something was wrong.

During an interview with CBS News, Cathy recalls texting with her daughter Cristina before the flight. But once they were on the plane, she got a harrowing text:

“Then she said something like ‘We’re in trouble, emergency landing.’ And I texted back, ‘What’s wrong with the plane?'”

Cathy says that she never heard back from her daughter, but she knew something was wrong when she got an alert from her iPhone:

“Then the next thing was (the SOS alert) that you get from your automatic Apple phones when you have an accident or something. And so I knew that something was wrong.” 

She says she called the airport and learned that there was a fire, and that’s when she knew the plane had crashed.

Even more heartbreaking, Cathy recalled the last time she saw the family, just the day before when they visited her house and young Ryder was expressing his excitement for Christmas:

“All of his presents under the tree were in that regard. And he asked me on Wednesday, he said, ‘Mimi, can I open up one of my presents?’ And I said ‘No, you gotta wait till Christmas.’ And I regret that, saying that, every hour since this happened, why I didn’t let him open one present. I didn’t, and I feel so badly about that.” 

Absolutely rips your heart out.

The NTSB said yesterday that a preliminary report on the crash will be released within 30 days, but they expect that it will be 12 to 18 months before the final report on their investigation is complete, so it will probably be a while before we know exactly what went wrong with the flight. But as we piece together their final moments, it’s even more heartbreaking to know that those onboard were aware that something was wrong – and thanks to technology, so was their family back at home.The post Greg Biffle’s Mother-In-Law Says She Received An Emergency Alert From Her Daughter’s Phone When Their Plane Crashed first appeared on Whiskey Riff.