Wife Whose Husband of 10 Years Texted ‘I Love You’ Minutes Before Deadly Plane Crash Files Lawsuit

YOU NEED TO KNOW

• On February 25, representatives of the widow of the pilot who died in last fall’s UPS cargo plane crash in Kentucky filed a wrongful death lawsuit.

• The complaint was filed against three companies linked to the plane

• “Safety is our top priority and we support the NTSB’s investigation,” GE Aerospace said in a statement to PEOPLE.

widow of one of the three pilots He filed a lawsuit against companies connected to the Boeing MD-11F plane, which died in the UPS cargo plane crash in Kentucky last November.

According to documents obtained by PEOPLE, on Wednesday, Feb. 25, attorneys representing Donna Diamond, the wife of the late Capt. Dana Diamond, filed a lawsuit against Boeing Company, the plane’s manufacturer, General Electric Company, the engine maker, and VT San Antonio Aerospace, Inc., which maintained the plane in the weeks before the crash in Louisville, Ky. filed a complaint against him.

The complaint, filed in Jefferson Circuit Court in Kentucky, claims wrongful death, negligence, loss of consortium and related damages against three companies following the death of 62-year-old pilot Dana in an apocalyptic crash.

On November 4, 2025, as UPS Flight 2976 was ascending into the sky at Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport, its left engine and pylon separated from the wing due to a fire.

The plane tipped towards the ground and crashed with a huge explosion; Dana, who was serving as an international aid worker on the flight, and two other crew members on board (Captain Richard Wartenberg, 57, and First Officer Lee Truitt, 45) died. 12 people in the area were injured and diedPEOPLE previously reported.

A preliminary report from the Ministry National Transportation Safety Board The 34-year-old concluded that the plane never rose more than 30 feet above the ground and also determined that the plane had many “fatigue cracks” and “fractures.”

“When an engine separates from the wing within seconds of takeoff, it is not an accident,” Mark Lanier, lead attorney at Lanier Law Firm representing Donna, said in a statement obtained by POEPLE. “This is a failure of the companies responsible for building and maintaining that aircraft.”

In the statement made by GE Aerospace, the company expressed its condolences to the families of the victims.

“We are deeply saddened by the loss of UPS Flight 2976,” the company said in a statement to PEOPLE. “We offer our sincere condolences to the families and loved ones of those affected. Safety is our top priority and we support the NTSB’s investigation.”

In a separate statement, a Boeing spokesperson also expressed its “deepest condolences to the families and friends of those killed in this accident.”

VT San Antonio Aerospace, Inc. Representatives did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.

The lawsuit states that the Diamonds, who have been married for 10 years, were a “happily married couple” before the fatal crash on Nov. 4.

“Tragically, Donna will never see her husband alive after that day,” the complaint says. “More tragically, Defendants could have prevented Dana’s suffering and death with simple honesty and a little care. But they did not.”

Dana first joined UPS in 1988 and, as of October 2025, was the most senior pilot of MD-11s in the company.

He served for years in a leadership role in the Independent Pilots Association and also served as commissioner and chief of Bastrop County Emergency Services District No. 1. Dana later trained more than 1,000 aircraft rescue firefighters, loved ones previously told PEOPLE.

“He was a safety champion,” Capt. Jess Grigg, former chair of IPA’s Aircraft Rescue Firefighting (ARFF) committee, previously told PEOPLE.

Flying was the center of Dana’s world, as was the life he built with Donna on their 132-acre ranch in Caldwell, Texas.

“I loved that my dream was his dream,” Donna told PEOPLE about the man who quickly became known as “Papaw” to the seven grandchildren in their blended family.

The trip to Honolulu that November was supposed to be short. Just minutes before the accident that took her life, Dana texted Donna: “I love you.”

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Later that day, Donna fell to the ground screaming when she saw the news about the accident.

For Donna, now twice widowed, there is nothing to fill the void left in her life by Dana’s death.

“I never thought I could love like I did before,” he told PEOPLE, “but Dana is that person.”

Read the original article People