Weather, landing system are potential causes of crash

Associated Press
Published Oct. 26, 2002

It will take investigators months to rule on why Sen. Paul Wellstone's plane crashed, but
aviation experts say poor weather and the limited instrument landing system at the Eveleth airport were potential factors.

The Beech King Air A-100 took off Friday morning from St. Paul and was approaching the Eveleth airport shortly after 10 a.m. when it crashed two miles east of the runway, killing Wellstone, his wife and daughter, and five others.

A 16-member team from the National Transportation Safety Board returned to the scene Saturday morning. Carol Carmody, acting NTSB chairwoman, said they would be at the site for four to six days, but it could take months to draw firm conclusions.

Capt. Richard Conry, 55, and co-pilot Michael Guess, 30, were among those killed in the crash.
Co-workers said the two were experienced pilots who often flew with the senator.

Conry had logged more than 5,000 hours of flying time since he started at Executive Aviation in April 2001, the company said. Conry had an airline transport pilot certification, the highest certification a pilot can receive. Guess started in June 2001 and had about 650 flight hours with the company. Guess was a certified commercial pilot and a graduate of the University of North Dakota's aeronautics program.

At the time of the crash, the cloud ceiling at the Eveleth airport was 700 feet. A light fog blanketed the area and a few snowflakes drifted to the ground. The National Weather Service had issued an advisory to pilots that occasional moderate icing conditions were possible in the area. Winds were light.

The pilots were flying through the clouds, relying on their instruments for guidance. The visibility was reported at 21/2 miles, well above the one-mile minimum for a standard instrument landing.
The airport does not have a control tower. Pilots announce their approach on a special radio frequency to alert other pilots who might be flying in the area.

Traci Chacich, the airport's office manager, said Wellstone's pilot radioed his approach from the east and indicated he was going to land on westbound Runway 27. He then clicked his microphone button to turn on the airport's landing lights ``and then there was nothing; no distress at all,'' she said. Chacich said two smaller Beech Queen Airs landed at the airport two hours earlier without incident. ``It was a little bit foggy, but nothing to speak of,'' she said.

Larger airports have precision instrument landing systems that keep pilots from drifting to the left or right or up and down as they approach the runway.

The Eveleth airport has a nonprecision system. It helps prevent pilots from drifting to the left or right, but it doesn't tell them whether they are too high or too low.

``The precision approach is quite a bit more accurate on keeping you on the path of descent,'' explained Brian Addis, owner of Wings, Inc., a St. Paul-based flight school.

To stay on course, pilots flying a nonprecision approach must pay particular attention to their altitude and distance from the end of the runway. The closer they get to the runway, the lower they can fly. If they misread their altimeter or misjudge their position, they can fly a perfectly functioning airplane into the ground.

The King Air A-100 is considered one of the most reliable planes in its class, according to aviation experts. The series comes equipped with anti-icing and de-icing equipment and two powerful Pratt & Whitney turboprop engines.

``King Air has a very solid record. It sounds like it's very much weather-related,'' said Eric Doten, a former FAA senior official and director of the Center for Aerospace Safety Education at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Fla.

Jeff Johnson, an associate professor in the aviation program at St. Cloud State University, said freezing rain and severe icing conditions can cause problems for most planes. But the King Air A-100 has inflatable ``boots'' on the leading edges of the wings that the pilot can make ``expand like a balloon to break ice off,'' he said.

With so little information about the crash, it's hard to say what might have happened, said Al Palmer, director of flight operations for the University of North Dakota's School of Aerospace Sciences.

``There's weather out there, but it doesn't seem like it's really bad weather,'' he said.
``The first thing that popped into mind was OK, you're flying the airplane into bad weather. Maybe something went wrong with the airplane, but the airplane was still flyable. And your attention gets diverted, and it's a Controlled Flight Into Terrain (CFIT) accident,'' Palmer said.

``The majority of the aircraft accidents are in the broad category of CFIT,'' he explained. ``What that means is we pilots, we take an airplane that's capable of flying, but for whatever reason our attention gets focused or channelized, and we fly that airplane into the ground.''

NTSB records show just two fatal accidents involving the planes in the past six years, and those crashes occurred 11 days apart in December 1997.

But both accidents bore some similarities to Friday's accident. Both involved experienced pilots who crashed while trying to make instrument landing approaches in heavy fog. One accident, in Colorado, killed two Minnesota men and injured a third. The pilot gave no indication of problems before the crash. The NTSB ruled the probable cause was the pilot's failure to follow instrument flight rules and maintain the minimum descent altitude. Fog was listed as a related factor.

Eleven days before that accident, a King Air A-100 with two people aboard crashed while making an instrument approach to Charlotte-Douglas International Airport in North Carolina. The crash killed the pilot, but a passenger survived.

In that accident, the NTSB ruled that the probable cause was the pilot flying too low.

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