Family Files Lawsuit Against Pilot's Estate in Fatal Crash at SMO

By City News Service

Three sons of a passenger killed in a plane crash at Santa Monica Airport filed a negligence/wrongful death suit against the estate of the pilot Tuesday.

Charles Dupont, Elliot Dupont and Jackson Dupont brought the complaint in Los Angeles Superior Court against the estate of Mark Benjamin and the Malibu-based company MML Investments LLC, a real estate and aircraft management firm.

All the plaintiffs are the sons of Kyla Dupont, who was killed along with the other three people aboard the aircraft.

The suit seeks unspecified compensatory damages. A representative for the late Benjamin could not be immediately reached.

Killed in the Sept. 29 crash were Benjamin, 63, the president of a Santa Monica-based construction company; his son Lucas, 28; Lucas Benjamin's girlfriend, 28-year-old Lauren Winkler; and Dupont, 53.

The suit alleges Benjamin failed to maintain proper control over the plane, did not act "reasonably in the ownership of the plane," did not undertake the necessary actions to accomplish a safe flight, did not act reasonably in landing the plane and failed to keep it in good repair.

The recently released preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board found that all of the tires were inflated, and there was no debris on the runway when the Cessna 525A Citation slammed into the hangar and burst into flames around 6:20 p.m. Sept. 29.

The hangar collapsed onto the plane, which had taken off from Hailey, Idaho.