Posted on Tue, Oct. 29, 2002

Pilots were in good physical condition

BY CHARLES LASZEWSKI
Pioneer Press

EVELETH, Minn. - Investigators still don't know what caused the plane carrying Sen. Paul Wellstone and seven others to turn away from the Eveleth-Virginia Municipal Airport, but they have ruled out physical problems with the pilots and one important piece of equipment.
Dr. Thomas Uncini, St. Louis County's chief medical examiner, said Monday his preliminary conclusions are that the two pilots were in good physical condition and there were no signs that they suffered a heart attack or stroke. "No, it didn't happen,'' he said of medical problems. "It looked pretty straightforward.''

While it will be a couple of more weeks before the autopsy results are ready, Uncini said he did not think his conclusions regarding the pilots would change. Further tests, which will be conducted by the Federal Aviation Administration laboratory in Oklahoma City, should help determine whether Wellstone and the others died from the impact of the crash or from smoke inhalation, he said.
Because only limited blood samples could be gathered from the victims, the FAA laboratory will test for carbon monoxide in the skin tissue, Uncini said.

At the same time, Frank Hilldrup, who took over as the lead investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board Monday, said the four actuators on the Beech King Air A100 were all extended at 15 degrees. The actuators are hydraulic screws controlling the wing flaps that help the plane lift off and descend.

Hilldrup said he didn't know if the 15-degree position was normal for an approach. But the fact they were all at the same position shows they were functioning properly, he said. The landing gear also appeared to be down, but the locking mechanism was too damaged by fire to determine whether it had locked in place.

Late Monday afternoon, a truck arrived at the Eveleth airport hangar where the larger pieces of the plane are stored as they are recovered. The truck will transport the propellers to manufacturer Hartzell's Ohio factory, where they will be disassembled and checked for any mechanical problems, Hilldrup said.

The plane crashed about 10:20 a.m. Friday after turning south, rather than continuing west the final several miles to the landing strip. After hitting the ground, the plane was engulfed in flames. All aboard perished, including Wellstone, his wife Sheila, daughter Marcia Wellstone Markuson, campaign staff members Tom Lapic, Mary McEvoy and Will McLaughlin and pilots Capt. Richard Conry and Michael Guess.

Hilldrup said damage to the aircraft so far has prevented investigators from learning whether the plane's de-icing equipment was working properly.

But another pilot who landed a slightly larger twin-engine plane at the airport on Friday, a couple of hours before Wellstone's plane crashed, said in an interview that he experienced no significant weather problems.

Veteran pilot Ray Juntunen said there was very light ice, but "nothing to be alarmed about. It shouldn't have been a problem.''

An overnight UPS pilot for Bemidji Aviation, Juntunen flies between Minneapolis and Eveleth five days a week. He described Friday's trip as uneventful. He said he ran into moderate icing conditions at 10,000 feet and requested permission to drop to 5,000. At that altitude, he had only light icing. When he dropped to 3,400 feet to begin his approach, "the ice slid off the windshield,'' he said.

According to the NTSB, Wellstone's pilots received warnings of icing at 9,000 to 11,000 feet and were allowed to descend to 4,000 feet. Juntunen said he was able to see the airport from five miles out, and another pilot landed a half-hour later and told him the clouds were a little lower, but still not bad.

If the pilot did have trouble seeing the airport, he should have simply gone straight, pulled up to 2,500 feet and banked right to try again, Juntunen said. For some reason, the plane was turning left, and he is as baffled as the investigators.

"I can't imagine what was happening,'' Juntunen said.

Radar tapes indicate the plane had descended to about 400 feet and was traveling at only 85 knots near the end of its flight. It then turned south, dove at an unusually steep angle and crashed. That speed was only 10 knots above the aircraft's "dirty" stall speed of 75 knots - meaning the landing gear is down and the flaps are fully extended.

Kent Johnson, a flight instructor at Stanton Airfield in Stanton, Minn., said turning while flying low and slow is dangerous because the aircraft's stall speed increases.

If the turn is steep enough, the upper wing loses its lift. The plane rolls to that side, the nose drops and the plane begins to spin. Recovery at low altitude is virtually impossible, making the stall-spin accident one of aviation's deadliest.

It's far too early to speculate about what may have happened in the cockpit as the King Air lumbered low and slow over the pine trees southeast of the airport.

Any number of things can go wrong during a landing, ranging from engine failure to malfunctioning radio and navigation gear. Aviation experts say the trick is to manage the problems without forgetting to fly the aircraft - a cardinal sin in aviation.

This is where teamwork becomes critically important. One member of the crew must quickly deal with the problems while the other must ignore the distractions and carefully fly the aircraft. Each must know what the other is doing and feel confident enough to speak up when he sees a dangerous situation developing, such as flying too low or too slow or banking too steeply.
A spokeswoman for the company that owned the plane said Conry, 55, was well acquainted with the airport and had flown into Eveleth "many times."

Mary Milla of Aviation Charter in Eden Prairie said she did not know how often Conry and co-pilot Guess, 30, of St. Paul, had been paired together. She said the company's pilots and co-pilots typically do not fly as regular pairs.

Milla said Conry had flown Wellstone a dozen or more times. Friday's flight was Guess' first with Wellstone, however.

Staff writers Tom Majeski and Martin J. Moylan contributed to this report. Charles Laszewski can be reached at (651) 228-5458 or claszewski@pioneerpress.com.

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