Posted on Mon, Oct. 28, 2002

Two minutes before crash, plane was already drifting

BY HANNAH ALLAM, TODD NELSON, PHILLIP PIÑA and CHARLES LASZEWSKI
Pioneer Press

The plane carrying Sen. Paul Wellstone began to drift off course at least two minutes before it crashed, the first sign of trouble in the flight and one that so far has no explanation, officials said Sunday.
With much of the plane reduced to ashes by the devastating impact and ensuing fire, investigators sifted through debris by hand Sunday, collecting even dime-size items they hoped were clues to why the aircraft swerved and dove to the ground, killing Wellstone and seven others Friday morning. In addition to combing over maintenance records, officials are determining the condition of the engines, propellers and other equipment.
So far, the effort has yielded a few pieces of the cockpit, part of the altimeter and possibly part of another gauge.
Wellstone, 58, was headed to a funeral with his wife, Sheila, 58, and their daughter, Marcia, 33. The others on board were campaign staff members Tom Lapic, Mary McEvoy and Will McLaughlin; Capt. Richard Conry, the pilot; and Michael Guess, the co-pilot. All were killed. Remains of the victims were to be released to their families as soon as autopsies were complete.
Family members and then a few representatives of the news media were escorted into the boggy, wooded site Sunday for the first time.
The flight, which left the Twin Cities at 9:37 a.m. Friday, had been routine until its final minutes, according to a reconstruction of the flight based on radar data reviewed by investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board.
At 10:18 a.m., the pilot got clearance to land at the Eveleth Virginia Municipal Airport, lined the aircraft up with the runway and was heading straight west. Everything appeared routine, said Carol Carmody, acting NTSB chairwoman.
"There was no evidence on the controller's part or from the pilot's voice that there was any difficulty," Carmody said of the last conversation between the pilot and the ground. "No reported problems. No expressed concern."
Something changed in the next 60 seconds, because at 10:19 a.m. the twin-engine aircraft began drifting slightly to the south, radar showed. The last appearance on radar came about two minutes later, as the plane was just north of the crash site's east side.
"A normal landing would have continued heading straight west," Carmody said. "We find the whole turn curious."
Carmody said investigators are looking for clues concerning:
The de-icing boots on the plane's tail and wings and whether they were functional and in use. At 10:01 a.m., the pilot was cleared to Eveleth and given an advisory about icing between 9,000 and 11,000 feet.
The engines, removed from the crash field Sunday and taken to the airport, and how they were working when the plane crashed.
The propellers and their condition.
An airport landing beacon, owned and maintained by the state, that the FAA found to be slightly out of tolerance Saturday and was retesting Sunday.
The plane's maintenance records and the pilots' records. Carmody said a review of the maintenance records, still incomplete, had turned up nothing unusual. She said she had received no information on the pilots.
NTSB officials estimated they would spend three to five more days at the site.

'I AM GLADI NEVER SAW IT'
Getting to the site is a rough, sloppy ride, with mud splashing and trees being snapped and crushed beneath the special vehicles needed to reach it.
A small memorial has been built of three hay bales with a number of red roses on them. There also were candles and personal items from family members.
The crash site is so densely wooded that the area was dark, even though the sun was shining. The plane is mostly ashes; part of the tail and part of the right wing appeared to be the only recognizable pieces.
In about a 50-foot radius around the craft, the ground was charred. Purple tape was attached to trees that had damage from the plane. One had been hit by a propeller. The descent of the plane into the trees was visible, a trail indicating a fast dive after the plane initially struck the trees.
From her log home less than a mile west of the wreckage, Megen Williams agonizes over not calling 911 when she heard the sound she now believes was the plane on its way down.
The aircraft seemed to be running normally, she said, but sounded closer than most. She didn't see which direction it was traveling, or how far it was from her home.
But she remembers hearing silence after the plane passed her house, as if the engines had cut off. Within seconds, Williams said, she heard a diving noise and then an explosion. She looked out the window and saw nothing - no smoke, no fire. She assumed the blast was the usual rumbling from an Iron Range mine.
"How do you explain a sound like that when people lost their lives?" Williams said Sunday. "I guess I am glad I never saw it."
For several pilots, Friday's tragedy brought back memories of the 1993 crash near Hibbing, Minn., in which 18 people died. In both crashes, the planes encountered bad weather and were flown by two-pilot teams of a veteran airman and a co-pilot with far fewer hours logged in the air.
After a six-month investigation into the Hibbing crash that brought out contentious details about the conduct of the pilot and inexperience of the co-pilot, the National Transportation Safety Board ruled the crash was caused by several factors. Among them were pilot error and the fact that the plane lacked certain pieces of safety equipment that have long been standard on larger aircraft.
What the pilots in Friday's crash discussed in their final moments will remain a mystery, because the plane was not equipped with a cockpit voice recorder. Although the plane was not required by law to have one, a recorder probably would have helped investigators, who may have little to go on because of the heavy damage to the aircraft.
"They're going to have a problem in finding out a whole lot because of the damage and the lack of any discussion between the two pilots," said Don Sipola, a private pilot with 25 years' experience flying out of the Eveleth-Virginia Municipal Airport. "If they had a recorder in that last 30 seconds, they would have been saying something to each other that would give you a clue as to what's causing this to get off course and drift this far."

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