Google co-founder Sergey Brin was slapped with a wrongful-death lawsuit by the widow of a pilot who was flying the billionaire’s seaplane from California to his private island in Fiji when it ran out of fuel and crashed into the Pacific Ocean.
Brin’s $8 million twin-engine aircraft was equipped with an “unauthorized and illegally installed auxiliary fuel system” that malfunctioned several hours into the May 20, 2023 flight, in line with the grievance filed in state court in Santa Clara County, Calif., earlier this month.
Pilot Lance Maclean and his co-pilot Dean Rushfeldt attempted to return to California after they were killed after the plane plunged into the Pacific about 13 miles short of the coast near Half Moon Bay, roughly 30 miles southwest of San Francisco.
The lawsuit, lodged by Maclean’s widow Maria Magdalena Olarte, named Google as a co-defendant since it partially owned the plane, in addition to the upkeep company that installed the fuel system and hired the pilots.
It also accused Brin — the tenth richest person in the world with an estimated net value of $122 billion, in line with Bloomberg Billionaires Index — of attempting to destroy evidence on the crash scene by obstructing recovery efforts.
“Brin is among the many richest people in the world. If he desired to recuperate the aircraft and the stays of those lost, it will be done,” Olarte’s lawyers said in an amended grievance filed on Feb. 13, suggesting that Brin didn’t act “because he, presumably, already knew the troubling facts that the FAA later uncovered in its investigation.”
The Post has sought comment from Google and Brin.
“With fuel quickly running out, the pilots declared an emergency,” forcing pilot Lance Maclean and his co-pilot Dean Rushfeldt to make an emergency return to California, in line with the grievance filed in state court in Santa Clara County earlier this month, that was earlier reported on by Bloomberg.
Maclean and Rushfeldt had been on their strategy to Fiji “so Brin could treat his private guests to some island hopping,” per the suit, which also said that the 65-year-old Maclean had been Brin’s pilot “for years.”
Nonetheless, the seaplane, a Viking Air Ltd. DHC-6 Twin Otter Series 400, didn’t have the sufficient fuel capability to fly the roughly 2,350-mile first leg from Santa Rosa, Calif., to Hawaii — so Brin and others hired a mechanic to put in an auxiliary system in the fuselage to extend capability, the suit alleged.
However the mechanic illegally installed it “from memory” and fuel wasn’t transferred from the auxiliary system to the most important tanks throughout the flight, eventually causing the crash, the suit said.
A rescue team found the aircraft floating upside-down in the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, the court documents noted, which is home to sea otters, elephant seals, gray whales, and other endangered species.
Each Maclean and Rushfeldt were found strapped into their seats in the submerged cockpit, though neither may very well be rescued the day of the crash, “so the aircraft and the pilots subsequently sunk to the underside of the ocean, resting at a depth of lower than 3,000 feet,” the lawsuit said.
Brin’s family office, Bayshore Global Management, had vowed publicly two days after the crash that it will be “providing families with assistance and can proceed to achieve this so long as needed.”
Nonetheless, just days after that, representatives for Brin said that “nobody could legally try and recuperate the aircraft since the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration refused to grant permission for any underwater activities in the world,” in line with the lawsuit.
The NOAA has denied that it stood in the best way of the recovery effort, the grievance said.
The plaintiff alleged that she was under the impression that the NOAA was “dragging its feet” for twenty-four days, at which point “the lie about NOAA’s blocking the recovery efforts was exposed,” in line with the lawsuit.
“From the outset of the crash, despite publicly assuring Plaintiff that her husband’s stays could be recovered, Brin and his agents decided to depart him at the underside of the ocean together with evidence that may establish that Defendants were chargeable for the crash that killed the 2 pilots,” in line with the grievance.
Olarte is looking for not less than $150,000 in financial damages — not less than $50,000 each for “severe emotional distress,” “economic damages” and “general damages,” per the suit.
Lawyers for Olarte didn’t immediately reply to The Post’s request for comment.
In an Instagram post honoring her late husband 90 days after the fatal crash, Olarte wrote that Brin “has never spoken or offered me his support to search out my Lance.”