KTAR News reported that six people, including one child, were killed Tuesday night when a six-seat, single-engine plane crashed in a wooded area near Mirror Lake State Park in the Town of Dellona, Wisconsin. According to the report, the Sauk County Sheriff's Department said the plane was traveling from Kenosha to Menomonie. No cause has been determined, and nothing in the reporting establishes responsibility for the crash.
When a plane crash kills someone, Arizona law gives the claim to a defined group, not to everyone who grieves. Under A.R.S. § 12-611 through A.R.S. § 12-613, a wrongful death action is brought by the surviving spouse, a child, a parent or guardian, or the personal representative of the estate, on behalf of those survivors. If no such survivor exists, the estate may bring the claim. Damages are measured by what the survivors lost: financial support, household services, companionship, and their own grief and anguish. A separate survival action under A.R.S. § 14-3110 belongs to the estate and covers what the decedent endured before death, including medical expenses and conscious pain. Most Arizona wrongful death claims must be filed within two years of the death under A.R.S. § 12-542, and a claim against a government body requires a written notice of claim within 180 days under A.R.S. § 12-821.01. Aviation investigations often run far longer than those deadlines allow.
The Investigation and Your Deadline Run on Different Clocks
Federal investigations into aircraft accidents can take a year or more to produce findings, and a preliminary report says nothing final about cause. The filing deadline does not pause while that work goes on. In Arizona, the two-year period in A.R.S. § 12-542 runs from the date of death for a wrongful death claim, so a family that waits for an official conclusion can lose the right to sue before the conclusion arrives. If any defendant turns out to be a public entity or a public employee, the 180-day notice requirement in A.R.S. § 12-821.01 is even tighter, and missing it generally ends the claim regardless of how strong the underlying facts are. The practical answer is to preserve the claim first and let the investigation inform it later.
Fatal Aviation Claims Usually Involve More Than One Possible Defendant
A fatal aircraft accident raises questions that reach well past the person at the controls. Potential defendants in these cases can include the aircraft owner, a charter or flight operator, a maintenance facility, a parts manufacturer, and in some circumstances a fuel supplier or an entity responsible for flight planning information. Arizona applies pure comparative fault under A.R.S. § 12-2505, which means fault can be divided among several parties and a recovery is reduced by the share assigned to the decedent rather than barred outright. That matters because an early assumption about who is responsible is often wrong. Sorting it out depends on physical evidence, maintenance records, and training and dispatch files, and those records sit with the parties who may ultimately be defendants.
What Families Can Do Now
Start with the probate side. A wrongful death claim brought by the estate, and any survival action under A.R.S. § 14-3110, requires an appointed personal representative, and that appointment takes time. Request certified copies of the death certificate; insurers and courts require them. Keep every document that arrives from an airline, operator, or insurer, and do not sign a release or give a recorded statement to any insurance representative before you understand what the claim is worth. Write down what you know about the trip, including who arranged it and why. If you are contacted about a settlement within days of the loss, that is a signal to slow down, not to sign.
Families in Arizona weighing a claim after a fatal crash can learn more about how these cases work on our Arizona wrongful death practice page.