Terry Michael Druffel was helping his friend Barrie Andrew McMurtrie pick up his plane in Myrtle Beach after it had been in the garage for maintenance.
McMurtrie, piloting the Piper PA28R aircraft, and Druffel, the passenger, was headed to Whiteville, North Carolina. But shortly after the two men took off from the Myrtle Beach International Airport on Sept. 14, 2022, the plane crashed, killing them both.
Now, nearly three years after their husbands were killed, two Brunswick County, North Carolina, widows have filed a federal wrongful death lawsuit against the aviation company, claiming the mechanic who serviced the plane forgot to install a gasket that caused the engine to fail and the plane to crash…