Posted on Sat, Oct. 26, 2002

Weather, landing system are suspected causes

BY TOM MAJESKI
Pioneer Press

It will take investigators months to figure out why U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone's plane crashed, but aviation experts suspect that weather and the instrument landing system at the Eveleth-Virginia Municipal Airport might have been factors.

The Beech King Air A100 took off Friday morning from St. Paul Downtown Airport and was approaching the Eveleth airport shortly after 10 a.m. when it crashed two miles east of the runway.
Capt. Richard Conry, 55, and co-pilot Michael Guess, 30, were among the eight people killed in the crash. The two often flew with the senator, co-workers said, and were experienced pilots. Conry logged more than 5,000 hours of flying time since he started at Executive Aviation in April 2001, according to a company news release. Conry had an airline transport pilot certification - the highest certification a pilot can receive. Guess started in June 2001 and logged about 650 hours of flight time. A graduate of the University of North Dakota's aeronautics program, Guess was a certified commercial pilot.

At the time of the crash, the cloud ceiling at the airport was 700 feet. A light fog blanketed the area and a few snowflakes drifted to the ground. Winds were light. The pilots were flying blind through the clouds, relying on their instruments for guidance.

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 the King Air 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, such as those in Hibbing, downtown St. Paul and the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport in Bloomington, 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.

Addis, who has flown every model of the King Air produced, said the plane is "fully capable of handling these types of conditions."

He described the airplane as a workhorse in the business aviation community. "They built lots of them, and they have been on the market for years and years and are absolutely excellent."

Wellstone's plane was one of only 247 made by Raytheon, which is based in Wichita, Kan. Powered by two Pratt & Whitney turboprop engines, it has a maximum speed of 287 mph and can fly 1,500 miles with eight passengers and two crew members.

The aircraft involved in Friday's accident was serial number B-245, and rolled off Beech's assembly line in 1979. Between then and 1985, it was bought and sold five times.

In 1986, it was bought by a Danish company and flown in Europe for three years. It returned to the United States in July 1989 when it was bought by a Wichita investment firm. Later that year, it was sold to an electric company in Hawaii.

The next and final owner was Beech Transportation Inc., on Flying Cloud Drive in Eden Prairie. It bought the plane in December 1994.

King Air A100s have compiled a relatively good safety record. National Transportation Board 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 bear some eerie similarities to Friday's accident. Both involved experienced pilots who crashed while trying to make Instrument Landing System (ILS) approaches in heavy fog. One accident, in Colorado, killed two Minnesota men and injured a third.

That crash involved a King Air owned by Aviation Charter, Inc., of Eden Prairie. That company has the same business address and CEO as Beech Transportation.

The plane was carrying two Northwest Airlines mechanics to Colorado Springs to fix one of the airline's jets. The pilot gave no indication of problems before the crash.

The NTSB ruled the probable cause of the accident was the pilot's failure to follow Instrument Flight Rule procedures and maintain the minimum descent altitude. Fog was listed as a related factor.

Eleven days before that accident, a King Air A100 with two people aboard crashed while making an ILS 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's continued approach below decision height without reference to the runway environment."

The plane carrying Wellstone had only two reports of problems in its history, according to the FAA. Both were in March 1996 and were problems with worn fuel cutoff levers that were replaced with the recommendation for more frequent inspections.

"It's a widely used airplane," 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. "King Air has a very solid record. It sounds like it's very much weather-related."
The King Air A100s have "inflatable boots" that break off ice that might form on the plane's wings and tails, Doten said.

The National Transportation Safety Board has dispatched a "Go Team" to the accident site. Investigator Robert Benzon will head it. The NTSB acting chairman, Carol Carmody, who'll serve as the agency's spokesperson, will accompany him.

Eleven additional investigators and NTSB personnel will accompany them.

Tom Majeski can be reached at tmajeski@pioneerpress.com or (651) 228-5583. David Hanners, Martin Moylan, Rick Linsk, Janet Roberts and Washington correspondent Seth Borenstein contributed to this report.

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