Lawsuits: Unmaintained trees caused deadly Mt. Pleasant plane crash

MOUNT PLEASANT, S.C. (WCSC) - A plane crash that turned into a search and rescue mission is seeing renewed calls for accountability.

Over two years after the incident, the widows of the two men who were in the fatal 2020 crash are filing new lawsuits against airport authorities for not maintaining the height of trees near the runway.

Among those listed in the suits are the Charleston County Airport district, the Charleston County Aviation Authority and the South Carolina Aeronautics Commission.

The suits allege that on April 9, 2020, Glenn Lamb and Michael Gigliobianco were in the plane headed to the Mt. Pleasant Regional Airport, but before they could land, they hit trees near the runway, which the lawsuits allege were about 75 to 90 feet tall.

The widows, Cynthia Lamb and Mary Gigliobianco, claim in the lawsuits that the trees being as high as they were “penetrated protected airspace.”

The suits go on to claim, “Defendants had both actual and constructive notice that the erection or presence of obstacles within protected airspace posed a direct and foreseeable risk to the safety of members of the flight public.”

Following the late-night crash, the plane and its passengers went missing until just after sunrise the next day, when authorities found the wreck and identified the passengers.

Lamb and Gigliobianco say none of this would have happened if the trees were maintained and cut to a proper height.

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