Manslaughter charge filed in death of ‘surf royalty heir’ in Orange County

It’s been almost a year since the 20-year-old grandson of a legendary surfboard shaper was killed while “car surfing” on an e-bike along Pacific Coast Highway in Huntington Beach.

Now, the young man accused of towing Kolby Aipa while driving at speeds of more than 50 mph faces a criminal charge.

Brandon Scott Soleau, 21, of Huntington Beach, has been charged with one felony count of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence in Aipa’s death, according to the Orange County district attorney’s office. He is scheduled to be arraigned Thursday and faces up to six years in prison if convicted as charged.

Aipa was the grandson of iconic shaper Ben Aipa, known for pioneering surfboard styles such as the sting and refining the design of the swallowtail in the 1970s.

Surfer Magazine described the younger Aipa as a “surf royalty heir,” noting that he had a promising surf career himself, as well as sponsorships from several surf clothing brands.

In September, Aipa became the youngest member of the Surfers’ Hall of Fame when he was posthumously inducted and honored with a plaque next to his grandfather’s handprints in the cement in front of Huntington Surf & Sport.

Aipa was fatally wounded on Aug. 2, 2025, after attending a movie premiere during the U.S. Open of Surfing in Huntington Beach.

Around 10:30 p.m. that evening, eight passengers piled into Soleau’s 2015 Toyota Tacoma, including three people in the bed of the truck, prosecutors said.

Aipa was riding his e-bike alongside Soleau’s truck on a service road parallel to PCH when he asked his friend if he could grab on and “car surf,” prosecutors allege. Soleau is accused of saying yes.

Aipa, who was not wearing a helmet, then put his arm through the truck’s front passenger window and grabbed on, prosecutors said. Under the California Vehicle Code, it is illegal for anyone on an e-bike, bicycle, motorcycle or roller skates to attach themselves to another vehicle on a road.

A passenger filmed Aipa being towed while Soleau merged onto southbound PCH at around 50 mph, prosecutors said. Shortly thereafter, Aipa lost control of his e-bike and crashed. He was taken to a hospital in critical condition and died three days later from blunt head trauma.

“This is a stark reminder that every action and every decision have a consequence, and in this instance the price of those decisions was the life of a 20-year-old man and that is a price no one should ever have to pay,” O.C. Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer said in a statement Friday.

Aipa’s death has been widely mourned in Hawaii, where his family is from, and in Huntington Beach where he lived.

“I was working hard in this life, perpetuating my father’s legacy, thinking I had this surf legacy that I needed to pass on to my son and my son would run with it,” Kolby’s father, Duke Aipa, said at his son’s Hall of Fame induction ceremony. “That didn’t happen, but what did happen is that Kolby found a way to come back full circle to the basic principles of love and aloha.”

Aipa Surf, the board company founded by Kolby’s grandfather, shared a statement following his death saying that the young surfer had “a way with touching the lives of whoever he met.”

“His acts of kindness and caring was his gift of Aloha to friends and strangers alike,” the company stated. “To everyone that reads this … pass his Aloha on.”

Times Community News staff writer Matt Szabo contributed to this report.