Recently, a private jet crashed at Statesville Regional Airport in North Carolina, USA. Citing leaked FBI chatters, it is being claimed that the pilot was a Sunni Bangladeshi radical Islamist associated with Jamaat-e-Islami and the Indian Subcontinent branch of Al-Qaeda (AQIS). It is further alleged that he praised Osama bin Laden before crashing the jet.
See the post on X making this claim here.
Fact-check
According to the investigation by the Rumor Scanner team, the claim that the pilot of the private jet crashed at Statesville Regional Airport in North Carolina was Bangladeshi is incorrect. In fact, none of the seven occupants on the aircraft were Bangladeshi.
Research into this matter via a report published on the NASCAR racing company website reveals that the crashed aircraft carried NASCAR driver Greg Biffle, his wife Cristina, their son Ryder, and their daughter Emma. Other people on board were Dennis Dutton, his son Jack, and Craig Wadsworth.
The same information can be found through other international media sources.
Greg Biffle was born in 1969 in Vancouver. In a career spanning more than two decades, Greg Biffle was selected as one of NASCAR’s “75 Greatest Drivers” of all time in 2023. The 55-year-old Biffle won 19 races in the Cup Series over his 20-year career.
According to Dennis Dutton’s Facebook profile, his home was in North Carolina. He and his son Jack were both pilots. 67-year-old Dennis was once a reserve pilot for the U.S. Air Force and a Captain for Delta Airlines.
Based on Craig Wadsworth’s Facebook profile, he was also involved with NASCAR and lived in North Carolina.
Media reports state that although the specific identity of who was serving as the lead pilot is not confirmed, a review of the identified passengers confirms that there were no Bangladeshi citizens on the crashed aircraft.
Therefore, the claim that the pilot of the private jet crashed in the United States was Bangladeshi is false.