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7 kids, 7 adults die in Montana plane crash, FAA says - Satellite and FTA Forums
7 kids, 7 adults die in Montana plane crash, FAA says
March 23, 2009
Photo: Martha Guidoni said this photo was taken after she and her husband saw the plane "nosedive" in Butte, Montana.
(CNN) -- Seven children and seven adults died in a plane crash Sunday in Butte, Montana, according to the FAA.
The single-engine Pilatus PC 12 was headed to Bozeman, Montana, but was rerouted to Butte instead, said Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Mike Fergus.
The plane crashed 500 feet short of the runway at Bert Mooney Airport.
The National Transportation Safety Board is sending an investigation team to the scene, said Kristi Dunks, an aerosafety investigator with the agency.
Dunks told reporters in Butte late Sunday the plane crashed at the Holy Cross Cemetery, just south of Runway 3 at the airport.
No one on the ground was injured, Sheriff John Walsh said.
Martha Guidoni told CNN that she and her husband witnessed the plane crash.
She photographed one of the first images from the scene, which showed the cemetery in the foreground of a huge blaze.
"We were just taking a ride -- all of a sudden, we watched this plane just take a nosedive," she told CNN.
"We drove into the cemetery to see if there was any way my husband could help someone.
We were too late -- there was nothing to help."
Her husband, Steve Guidoni, said the plane "went into the ground" and set a tree on fire.
Video Watch witness describe what he saw »
"I looked to see if there was anybody I could pull out, but there wasn't anything there, I couldn't see anything," he told CNN.
"There was some luggage strewn around.
... There was some plane parts."
The flight plan originated in Redlands, California, according to flight-tracking site FBOweb.com.
Stops were made in Vacaville and Oroville, California, before the plane headed for Montana.
The plane stopped at the Oroville airport about 11 a.m., refueled, and departed about half an hour later, said Police Chief Kirk Trostle.
"There were some adults and children on board," he told reporters Sunday evening, adding that the passengers got out briefly to stretch while the pilot refueled the plane.
Eric Teitelman, Oroville's director of community development and public works, said the small airport has no control tower, but, because it has a "wide-open runway" and a self-service fuel system, it is a frequent stop for general aviation aircraft.
There were conflicting reports about ownership of the plane, manufactured in 2001.
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Plane crash kills 3 families with young children on way to vacation
March 24, 2009
BUTTE, Montana (CNN) -- Three families with young children were heading to a ski vacation together when their plane crashed into a cemetery in Montana, loved ones of the victims said Monday.
Federal investigators said that with no flight data recorder or cockpit voice recorder on the plane and no survivors, an investigation into what caused the crash could last months.
"This is going to take a while," National Transportation Safety Board Acting Chairman Mark Rosenker said at a news conference Monday.
Investigators are looking into whether the single-engine plane was overloaded, what role weather may have played in the accident and what made the pilot decide to divert to Butte, he said.
He urged reporters not to "jump to conclusions" about the crash.
Early speculation focused on the fact that there were 14 people aboard the 10-seat aircraft, but Rosenker said young children often travel on the laps of adult passengers and urged reporters not to rush to judgment about the cause of the crash.
"To jump to conclusions is a disservice to your readers and to those who are watching your broadcasts," he said.
"This will be a long and tedious investigation -- extremely thorough.
We will look at every factor which could affect the performance of this aircraft."
Investigators said seven adults and seven children were on board, and all died in the crash Sunday.
Authorities have not publicly identified the victims.
But colleagues and loved ones have named all 14.
On Monday some of the victims' relatives visited the site of the wreck.
St.
Helena Hospital in St.
Helena, California, said an ophthalmologist who worked there was killed, along with his family.
"The St.
Helena Hospital family is filled with such deep sadness over the deaths of Dr.
Erin Jacobson, his wife Amy, and their three children, Taylor, Ava and Jude," the hospital said in a written statement, adding, "Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends of each victim of this terrible tragedy."
A friend of the Jacobson family said the Jacobson children were 4, 3, and 2 years of age.
A dental practice in Valley Springs, California, said dentist Michael Pullen and his wife, Vanessa, were on the plane with their 9-year-old daughter, Sydney, and 7-year-old son, Christopher.
The family is from Galt, California.
Dr.
James DuHamel of DuHamel & Pullen Family Dental said the two families were related.
Vanessa Pullen, a physician in Elk Grove, was the sister of Amy Jacobson, he said.
DuHamel said Pullen was "a fantastic dentist," and added that he will "miss him greatly."
Adrian Cotton, whose wife is a sister of Vanessa Pullen and Amy Jacobson, is acting as a spokesman for the families.
The third family was that of Dr.
Brent Ching, a dentist in Chico, California, his office confirmed without providing further comment.
Ching was accompanied by his wife Kristen and children Hailey, 5, and Caleb, 3, Hostetter said.
Cotton said the pilot on the plane was Bud Summerfield, who was not related to any of the victims.
While investigators continue to look into the crash, it is unclear whether details of what happened will ever be known.
There is no requirement for a cockpit voice recorder or a flight data recorder on such private planes.
Rosenker said there might be some avionics -- electronic systems that private planes can use for a variety of purposes -- that might contain some information, though they are not built to withstand crashes.
A CNN crew at the crash site, Holy Cross Cemetery, could see no large chunks of the plane, a single-engine Pilatus PC-12.
But Rosenker said "portions of all major structural components" had been identified.
Some visitors set up crosses outside the gates of the cemetery to serve as a makeshift memorial.
Others brought flowers.
The flight was headed to Bozeman, Montana, but was rerouted to Butte, said Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Mike Fergus.
The plane crashed 500 feet short of the runway at Bert Mooney Airport.
No one was injured on the ground, Sheriff John Walsh said.
The weather, which was clear Sunday, does not appear to have been a factor.
The plane was designed to carry 11 people -- two in the cockpit and nine in the cabin, said Rosenker.
He noted that young children often travel on the laps of adult passengers.
Martha Guidoni said she and her husband witnessed the plane crash.
She photographed one of the first images from the scene, which showed the cemetery in the foreground of a huge blaze.
IReport.com: iReporter at scene of crash
"We were just taking a ride -- all of a sudden, we watched this plane just take a nosedive," she said.
"We drove into the cemetery to see if there was any way my husband could help someone.
We were too late -- there was nothing to help."
Her husband, Steve Guidoni, said the plane "went into the ground" and ignited a tree.
"I looked to see if there was anybody I could pull out, but there wasn't anything there;
I couldn't see anything," he said.
"There was some luggage strewn around.
... There was some plane parts."
A flight plan said the plane originated in Redlands, California, according to flight-tracking site FBOweb.com.
Stops were made in Vacaville and Oroville, California, before the plane headed for Montana.
The plane stopped at the Oroville airport about 11 a.m., refueled and departed about half an hour later, said Police Chief Kirk Trostle.
The Oroville airport does not have a control tower.
Eric Teitelman, Oroville's director of community development and public works, said that because it has a "wide-open runway" and a self-service fuel system, it is a frequent stop for general aviation aircraft.
There were conflicting reports about ownership of the plane, which was manufactured in 2001.
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Icing, overload probed in Mont.
Plane crash
7 kids among 14 killed;
Similarities to Buffalo crash explored
AP
Mon., March.
23, 2009
BUTTE, Mont.
- Speculation over the crash of a single-engine turboprop plane into a Montana cemetery shifted to ice on the wings Monday after it became less likely that overloading was to blame, given that most of the 14 people on board were small children.
While descending Sunday in preparation for landing at the Bert Mooney Airport in Butte, the plane passed through a layer of air at about 1,500 feet that was conducive to icing because the temperatures were below freezing and the air "had 100 percent relative humidity or was saturated," according to AccuWeather.com, a forecasting service in State College, Pa.
Safety experts said similar icing condition existed when a Continental Airlines twin-engine turboprop crashed into a home near Buffalo Niagara International Airport last month, killing 50.
A possible engine stall created by ice, and the pilot's reaction to it, has been the focus of the Buffalo investigation.
"It's Buffalo all over again, or it could be," said John Goglia, a former member of the National Transportation Safety Board.
"Icing, given those conditions, is certainly going to be high on the list of things to look at for the investigators."
Mark Rosenker, acting chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, told reporters in Montana that investigators would look at icing on the wings as a factor.
"We will be looking at everything as it relates to the weather," he said.
The single-engine plane, designed to carry 10 people, crashed 500 feet short of the Montana airport runway Sunday, nose-diving into a cemetery and killing seven adults and seven children aboard.
Relatives said the victims were headed to an exclusive resort on a ski vacation, and gave the children's ages as 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9, plus two 4-year-olds.
Weather conditions
Safety experts said finding the cause of the crash is likely to be significantly complicated by the absence of either a cockpit voice recorder or a flight data recorder, which isn't required for smaller aircraft that don't fly commercial passenger like airlines and charter services.
Former NTSB chairman Jim Hall pointed to similarities between the Montana crash and a March 26, 2005 crash near Bellefronte, Pa., in which a pilot and five passengers were killed.
The plane in both cases was the Pilatus PC 12/45 and was on approach to an airport.
In both cases there were reports of conditions conducive to icing at lower elevations and witness reports that the plane appeared to dive into the ground.
"I'm certain they are also going to look at the weather conditions at the time and the pilot's training," Hall said.
He pointed to a recommendation on NTSB's "most wanted list" of safety improvements that FAA test the ability of turboprop planes to withstand a particular type of icing condition called "super cooled liquid drops" before certifying the aircraft design for flight.
FAA officials have said they're working on that recommendation.
"If you had some precipitation and the temperature was in the right range, that again is an area that investigators would look at," Hall said.
Hours after the crash, federal investigators had focused on overloading as a possible cause.
"It will take us a while to understand," Rosenker said.
"We have to get the weights of all the passengers, we have to get the weight of the fuel, all of the luggage."
Goglia said the Pilatus has a powerful engine for its size and is unlikely to be affected by the additional weight of a few children "unless they had an awful lot of baggage."
Standard flight procedures are for the pilot to file a report on the planes weight, including the weight of the passengers and the baggage and how that weight would be distributed around the plane, before taking off, safety experts said.
Preparing for icing
Peter Felsch, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service, said conditions measured on the ground not long after the 2:30 p.m.
MDT crash were fair winds of about 9 mph, 10 miles visibility, a temperature of 44 degrees Fahrenheit and a "broken cloud deck at 6,500 feet."
The Pilatus PC 12/45 is certified for flight into known icing conditions, according to the manufacturers' Web site and pilots who have flown the plane.
However, like all turboprop planes, it relies on deicing boots strips of rubber-like material on the leading edge of the wings and the horizontal part of the tail that inflate and contract to break up ice.
That technology, which goes back decades, isn't as effective at eliminating ice as the heat that jetliners divert from their engines to their wings.
One key in the Butte crash will be whether the pilot had changed the position of the aircraft's wing flaps for landing because changing the configuration of the wings by moving the flaps is where icing problems often show up, said Peter Goelz, a former NTSB managing director.
There won't be any radar data of the plane's final moments for investigators to examine like thousands of small airports, the Butte airport doesn't have a radar facility.
The radar at the FAA's en route center in Salt Lake City, which handled the flight's last leg, doesn't extend as far as the Butte airport because of the mountains between.
The last radio communication from the turboprop's pilot was with the Salt Lake City center when the plane was about 12 miles from Butte, said Doug Church, a spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.
The pilot told controllers he intended to land at Butte using visual landing procedures rather than relying on instruments, which is not unusual, Church said.
Change in flight plan
Rosenker confirmed that the pilot said nothing to controllers to indicate he was having trouble, including during radio conversations earlier in the flight when the pilot notified controllers he intended to divert from the flight's original destination of Bozeman, Mont., to Butte.
"We don't know the reason for the requested change to the flight plan," Church said.
"We don't know whether weather was a factor in Bozeman.
There was no apparent reason given for the change in flight plan from Bozeman to Butte."
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