Latest news with #MyrtleBeach-based
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
‘Something you can never replace': NC widows sue Myrtle Beach aviation company after husbands 2022 plane crash deaths
HORRY COUNTY, S.C. (WBTW) — Two North Carolina widows say they're heartbroken and frustrated after filing a federal lawsuit in February against a Myrtle Beach-based aviation company that may be liable for the deaths of their husbands. 'As much as we don't want to go to trial, we will do anything for justice,' widow Toni Titone said. Terry Druffel and Barrie McMurtrie died in a single-engine plane crash in a wooded area outside of Conway in September 2022. Almost six hours after the crash, widow Linda Druffel says the Horry County coroner called her and Toni Titone to tell them their husbands died at the scene. The widows told News13 the plane was in flames when it crashed. They say authorities could not identify their husbands until they found McMurtrie's logbook. 'This is the only thing I have left of my husband,' Linda said, holding the center of her necklace. 'It's his wedding ring from that crash.' The widows' wrongful death and negligence lawsuit says Druffel and McMurtrie flew McMurtrie's single-engine Piper PA-28R on September 14, 2022. The lawsuit claims Myrtle Beach-based Executive Helijet Aviation worked on that plane months earlier. Linda says experts who examined the plane told her, within about 10 minutes of the flight, oil started leaking from the engine. When Druffel and McMurtrie tried to land in a landfill area, their right wing hit a tree. Titone and Linda say their husbands were experienced pilots. McMurtrie flew for 30 years. Druffel spent 24 years in the Navy as a helicopter pilot and 25 years with his commercial pilot's license. 'My nephews, today, just got their private pilot's licenses because of Uncle Terry, who started flying with them when they were little boys,' Linda said. In its final report in December 2023, the National Transportation Safety Board said the probable cause of the crash was the mechanic's failure to install a required gasket on the vacuum pump drive pad, which led to a loss of engine power. Linda said 16 months before Druffel and McMurtrie died, another pilot crashed and died after Executive Helijet Aviation allegedly put equipment into his plane upside down. 'Three wonderful pilots, three wonderful men, were killed because of their negligence,' Linda said. Titone says Executive Helijet's insurance company initially offered her and Linda a $2 million policy. However, the insurance company eventually told the widows they would not be getting that money. Linda and Titone are suing the aviation company for more than $75,000. 'We didn't just lose our husbands,' Titone said. 'We lost a lot of financial stability, and we lost love.' 'We lost something you can never replace,' Linda added. In response to the widows' complaint, Executive Helijet Aviation denies any liability for the crash. News13 reached out to Executive Helijet's lawyer, but we have not heard back. Court records show jury selection is set for March 2, 2026. * * * Skylar Musick is a multimedia journalist at News13. Skylar is originally from Long Island, New York. She joined the News13 team in June 2024 after graduating from Villanova University in May 2024. Follow Skylar on X, formerly Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, and read more of her work here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Kingfisher Inn repairs underway after 2024 closure
HORRY COUNTY, S.C. (WBTW) — Repairs are underway at the Kingfisher Inn in Garden City, which was evacuated and closed down in March 2024 because of structural concerns. The high-rise condominium, located on the north side of the Garden City Pier, said in a Facebook post on Wednesday that contractors are on-site every day, along with the inn's staff members, who are cleaning and doing preventative maintenance inside units and on the property. The Kingfisher Inn was initially shut down after an engineer raised concerns about its structural integrity during a routine inspection. The inn was deemed a theoretical 'fall zone area,' according to Horry County spokesperson Mikayla Moskov. However, it was considered repairable. After the closure, News13 reported that the resort explained in an email to Kingfisher Inn owners that intrusive repairs would be necessary and that the building would most likely remain closed through the summer and possibly into the fall of 2024. The email also said the estimated project costs were expected to exceed the resort's existing reserve funds. The statement reiterated that everything was an estimate, and that an exact date for reopening and the cost of expenses would not be known until repair quotes were in hand. The high-rise hotel was built in 1960 with pre-cast tiling known to be weather-resistant, but only to a foundational depth of 40 feet. Saul Martinez, owner of a Myrtle Beach-based engineering firm, told News13 in 2024 that depth is about half of what it should be for coastal properties. The post from Kingfisher on Wednesday also mentioned that updates, as well as pictures of the continuing work, will be provided on its Facebook page. Count on News13 for updates. * * * Jordan White is a Digital Producer at News13. She joined the News13 team in August 2024. Jordan, a Myrtle Beach native, graduated from St. James High School in Murrells Inlet and is a graduate of Coker University. Follow Jordan on Facebook, X, formerly Twitter, and read more of her work here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
06-03-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Wildfires in the Myrtle Beach area haven't destroyed any homes. Here are some reasons why
Wildfires have impacted more than 1,600 acres in the Myrtle Beach area, with flames burning within a few feet of homes in communities close to Carolina Forest. With firefighters and first responders attending to the wildfires, a fire unrelated to the Carolina Forest blaze destroyed just one residence in Little River Horry County Fire Rescue announced on its Facebook page. The question becomes what role fire prevention built into homes plays in ensuring wildfires haven't engulfed properties, considering some of their proximity to populated communities in Carolina Forest. According to one home builder, it is negligible compared to the work of first responders who contained the flames over the last several days. Jason Repak is the president of the Myrtle Beach-based custom home building firm Hudson Custom Homebuilders, Inc. In an interview with The Sun News, Repak said that most fire-deterrent technology in a home prevents the spread of fires started in the house versus from external sources like wildfires. Things like firewalls between townhomes or using different types of drywall in different parts of homes slow fires from spreading, Repak said. Repak added that other fire prevention technologies in dwellings keep homes from collapsing on their occupants before they can escape. 'The thing that kept those homes from catching on fire and burning are the firefighters. There's just no, there's just no two ways about it,' Repak added. 'Yes, there are materials that we use and technologies that we put in place building homes to help prevent fire spread in homes. But I can't specifically point to one piece that if we didn't change that piece of technology, those homes would have burned up.' Yet homes built in South Carolina are already built to withstand extreme events like hurricanes. In 2024, the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety published a report rating the 18 states along the hurricane coast from Texas to Maine with the best building code systems. Of the 18 states featured in the ranking, South Carolina tied for the third-best building code system. Meanwhile, Horry County's Code of Ordinances for buildings and building regulations follows the International Fire Code created by the International Code Council. Repak said the Myrtle Beach area also provides a wide range of weather events that require building sturdier homes to survive extreme weather events. Whether it's making homes earthquake-proof, roofs resistant to high winds, or abodes able to cope with the occasional tropical storm or hurricane, Repak said that builders must account for all of that in Horry County. 'We live in a very unique place when it comes to constructing houses,' He added. 'So we have to deal with almost every type of weather phenomenon in this area that you can build a home for.' Part of the benefit comes from the large number of new homes throughout the Grand Strand and Carolina Forest. The Carolina Forest communities are relatively new along the Grand Strand. Hence its name, Carolina Forest, retained its lush greenery and remained mostly undeveloped until the early 2000s. Its remoteness and vast wilderness made it an attractive occasional practice range for the Conway Bombing and Gunnery Range between 1942 and 1947, and unexploded ordnance occasionally appeared in the Carolina Forest area in recent years. The Myrtle Beach area and South Carolina have an ample supply of homes built within the last two to three decades. According to a report by the National Association of Home Builders, in 2023, the median age of a house owned in the United States was 40 years old. According to the NAHB, the median age of South Carolina's housing stock was between 23-30 years old, and the real estate data firm ATTOM lists the average age of homes in Horry County as 30 years. Repak added that newer homes also benefit from utilizing better fire-prevention technology that older homes could not access during the building process. 'Technology progresses, and material manufacturing progresses. We continue to find materials that create a little bit safer structure for homeowners,' Repak said. 'Remember, it was 50 years ago. We were putting asbestos in homes and lead-based paint 10 years before that.' However, Repak said this new technology can only account for a small portion of preventing homes from catching on fire, such as slowing the spread of a fire from one home to the next. He added that the work of firefighters and a touch of luck were responsible for preventing the mass destruction of fire due to flames in Carolina Forest. 'That was the effort of those firefighters and emergency responders on scene that got those fires knocked down before they spread to those homes because they could have easily spread those homes,' Repak said. 'Especially like the homes that you see down on in Cherry Grove, Atlantic Beach, North Myrtle Beach, all those oceanfront row homes that are close together, once a home catches on fire, it's very easy for that fire to jump from one home to the next.'
Yahoo
10-02-2025
- Yahoo
Virginia court overturns pair of felony convictions against Tiger King star ‘Doc' Antle
HORRY COUNTY, S.C. (WBTW) — Tiger King star Bhagavan 'Doc' Antle scored a legal win last week after the Virginia Court of Appeals tossed a pair of felony convictions — but the Myrtle Beach-based wildlife handler still faces multiple federal charges. Antle, owner of Myrtle Beach Safari and star of two Netflix documentaries in 2020 and 2021, was convicted in June 2023 on two counts each of purchasing an endangered species and conspiracy to sell or purchase an endangered species. Antle's lawyers argued that his conviction of purchasing lion cubs was due to a misunderstanding of a Virginia statute that prohibits the sale of endangered species but not their purchase. Antle-updateDownload A jury acquitted Antle of five counts of animal cruelty and Judge Alexander Iden dismissed four additional animal cruelty charges against Antle and all charges against his two adult daughters, The Winchester Star reported. Prosecutor Michelle Welch said during Antle's trial that his lucrative petting zoo motivated him to maintain a steady supply of immature lion cubs that he purchased from Keith Wilson's Wild Animal Park near Winchester, calling the arrangement a 'cub pipeline' from Virginia to South Carolina. When Antle and Wilson began doing business in 2015, it was still legal to buy and sell lions, Welch said. But after lions were designated as an endangered species in December 2015, lions could only be traded between zoos and wildlife preserves that were part of an established breeding program and had permits. There were three illegal cub exchanges in 2017, 2018 and 2019, Welch said. Antle has also pleaded guilty on the federal level for conspiracy to violate the Lacey Act and conspiracy to launder money. The Lacey Act prohibits trafficking of illegally taken wildlife, fish or plants, including animals protected under the Endangered Species Act. The Virgina Court of Appeals upheld Antle's convictions for conspiracy to sell an endangered species. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
