The Weather Channel Sued Over Storm Chasers Accident

The family of a Texas man filed a $125 million lawsuit against the Weather Channel, claiming the network ignored its storm chasers’ history of reckless driving that led to the deadly “horrific” car crash in 2017.

Corbin Lee Jaeger

Fox News reports Karen Di Piazza filed the wrongful death lawsuit Tuesday against the Weather Channel over the death of her son, Corbin Lee Jaeger, who died on March 28, 2017 when Kelley Williamson and Randy Yarnall’s vehicle slammed into his Jeep near Spur, Texas.

Williamson and Yarnell — popular storm chasers for the Weather Channel and stars of the show “Storm Wranglers” — were speeding down the highway in their Chevy Suburban at 70 mph when they ran a stop sign and smashed in Jaeger’s vehicle, the lawsuit stated.

The duo was looking for any signs of a tornado and live streaming the drive on the Weather Channel’s Facebook page when the video stopped.

Jaeger, a 25-year-old storm spotter employed by the National Weather Service, Williamson, 57, and Yarnell, 55, all died on impact.

The car of storm chasers Kelley Williamson and Randall Yarnall was destroyed in the March 2017 wreck near Spur, Texas. Both men and storm spotter Corbin Lee Jaeger were killed. (Photo: The Law Offices of Robert A. Ball)

The lawsuit claimed that Williamson and Yarnall had a “well-documented history of dangerous behavior behind the wheel” that the channel ignored and even encouraged. Di Piazza claimed the in-studio reps not only monitored the storm chasers’ actions, they continued to instruct them during live streams to capture “particularly exciting footage.”

"The force of the collision caused the equipment-laden Suburban to catapult over a five-foot-tall fence 150 feet from the point of impact,” the attorney added. "Jaeger, a certified storm spotter for the National Weather Service, who had planned to return to college in Arizona to pursue a career as a meteorologist, was driving westward away from that tornado, when he was struck and killed.”