Injured On An Airplane?

Republished from: StaffordCountySun.com

Written by: Reed Williams 

LOUISA — Witnesses saw smoke coming from the airplane and noticed that it “didn’t sound right” just before it plunged to the ground, killing the pilot and igniting a house, an investigator said following the incident.

Investigators spent time sifting through the wreckage of the March 4 crash along U.S. 33 in the town of Louisa. The National Transportation Safety Board is in the early stages of a probe that could last from six months to a year, said Robert Gretz, a senior air safety investigator for the agency.

The Cessna T303 Crusader, loaded with 148 gallons of fuel, turned sideways and crashed vertically into the ground beside the house in the 100 block of Jefferson Highway, Gretz said. The crash occurred about 12:45 p.m.

Moments earlier, the plane had left Freeman Field airport a quarter-mile away after stopping to refuel. The homeowner was in the basement of the house when the plane struck, and he emerged unscathed.

Friends and a family member identified the pilot as James “Jay” Youngquist, a Reston resident in his 60s who had flown airplanes for four decades. His passengers had included former Gov. Timothy M. Kaine.

Youngquist left Manassas Regional Airport shortly before noon and stopped at Freeman Field on his way to Danville, where he planned to umpire a baseball game at Averett University.

“He was doing the two things he loved most, which is flying his airplane, and he was on his way to umpire a baseball game,“ his wife, Kathryn Youngquist, said during a brief phone interview.

During Kaine’s 2005 campaign for governor, Youngquist flew him to several campaign events.

“I am deeply saddened by the news of James Youngquist’s passing,“ said Kaine, who is chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

“Jay was a calm and caring person who loved to fly, and I know he will be truly missed by all who knew him. My thoughts and prayers are with his family as they manage through this terrible time.“

Kathryn Youngquist said her husband also is survived by his son from his first marriage, Steve Youngquist, and by Kathryn’s two sons, Tyler and Eric Waldron.

http://www2.staffordcountysun.com/scs/news/state_regional/article/witnesses_saw_smoke_before_fatal_plane_crash/53601/

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Reprinted from: The Washington Post

Written by: The Associated Press

GROVELAND, Calif. — A small plane crashed in flames in the backyard of a home in rural northern California Friday night, killing the two people aboard but causing no injuries on the ground, authorities said.

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Reprinted from: NBC.com

Written by: Brian Thompson

Evidence that a part of a Cessna 337 that fell off the plane before it crashed Monday at Monmouth Executive Airport suggest the possibility of a bird strike — as the names of those killed were released.

Five people, including a father, his son and nephew, died in the crash. They have been identified as Andrzej Zajaczkowski, 38, his son Patryk Zajaczkowski, 14, and nephew Filip Zajaczkowski, 6, as well as pilot Wojciech Nykaza, 46, of Lodi, NJ, and owner of the plane Jacek Mazurek, 45, of Kearny, NJ.

Mazurek was a friend of the Zajackowski family.

Meanwhile, one experienced pilot familiar with the area believes that birds may be to blame for the crash.

“I fly in and out of this airport quite frequently — birds are an issue,” said pilot Peter DeLisa.

DeLisa said a picture of the part lying on the runway appears to come from a wingtip of the doomed plane, and the NTSB admits witnesses saw something come off.

“Something flew off, separated the aircraft as it was flying over,” said NTSB investigator Jose Obregon.

“Airplanes are made to fly with all their parts,” said DeLisa, explaining that with the wing tip gone, “It changes the whole aerodynamic structure of the aircraft as well as the weight and the balance and the aircraft becomes uncontrollable.”

DeLisa said he talked to several people at the airport when the crash occurred, and they told him the pilot had gone up for a picture-taking opportunity with another family member in a small helicopter nearby taking the pictures.

The NTSB would not confirm that, but Obregon did say the plane had taken off from the airport located in Wall, NJ and had made one pass around the property when the tragedy occurred.

DeLisa said if the plane had been flying slower, several of those on board, or all, may have survived.

But there was a huge debris field several hundred feet away from the part that landed on the runway.

DeLisa said that told him “He was at the top end of his speed range and that’s what caused a large scattering of debris and made it so difficult for officials to recover the remains.”

DeLisa added that something other than a bird strike may have happened to cause the wing tip to fall off. NTSB investigators take great pains not to leap to conclusions until they’ve had a chance to study all the evidence, and Obregon admitted their probe could last anywhere from six months to a year and a half.

Follow the below link for orginal:

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local-beat/Plane-Crash-That-Killed-5-May-Have-Been-a-Bird-Strike-84496892.html

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Reprinted from: Seattle PI

Written by: Brooke Donald and Sughin Thanawala, ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

EAST PALO ALTO, Calif. — A small plane crashed Wednesday in a residential neighborhood shrouded in heavy fog, killing all three aboard, igniting fires and scattering debris onto a house where a children’s day care center operated, authorities said. There were no reports of injury on the ground, and fires caused by the crash were soon extinguished.

The Cessna 310 crashed around 7:55 a.m. shortly after takeoff from the Palo Alto Airport, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The crash site is one mile northwest of the airport.

Identities of the victims aboard the aircraft were not immediately known.

Menlo Park Fire Chief Harold Schapelhouman said the plane either struck a 100-foot electrical tower or clipped its power transmission lines and broke apart, sending debris raining down on the working-class Silicon Valley neighborhood.

A wing fell onto one house, where the children’s day care operated, and the rest of the plane struck the front retaining wall of another house down the street before landing onto two vehicles on the street, Schapelhouman said. Debris also struck two neighboring houses, he said.

The occupants of the homes have been accounted for, although authorities can’t be sure of the fatality count until crews begin clearing the wreckage, Schapelhouman said.

“Either by luck or the skill of the pilot, the plane hit the street and not the homes on either side,” he added. “That saved people in this community.”

Kate McClellan, 57, said she was walking her dog when she saw a plane descend from the foggy sky and strike the tower, causing power lines to swing wildly in the air.

“It burst into flames, and then it kept flying for bit before it hit some houses and exploded,” McClellan said.

Pamela Houston, an employee of the day care in the house struck by the wing, said she was feeding an infant when she heard a loud boom that she initially thought was an earthquake until she “saw a big ball of fire hit the side of the house.”

Houston said she screamed to the others in the house - the owner, the owner’s husband and their three children - and the group safely escaped before the home went up in flames.

“There are not even words to describe what it felt like,” she said. “I am very thankful to God that he allowed us to get out.”

The plane is registered to Air Unique Inc. No one answered the phone number listed for the Santa Clara company Wednesday morning. The plane was headed to the Hawthorne Municipal Airport in Southern California, the FAA said.

Calls to the Palo Alto Airport also were not immediately returned.

The city of Palo Alto, which provides power through a municipal utility agency, said most of the city and surrounding area had lost power due to Wednesday’s plane crash. Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital and Stanford Hospital both were operating on backup generators and canceled elective surgeries for the day, according to hospitals spokesman Robert Dicks.

“We have multiple crews on scene investigating,” said Joe Molica, a spokesman for Pacific Gas & Electric, which owns the transmission lines used by the city. “The crash appears to have affected three transmission lines that serve the city of Palo Alto’s municipal utility.”

Follow link:

http://www.seattlepi.com/national/1110ap_us_plane_hits_house.html

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Reprinted from: ABCnews.com

Written by: Sarah Netter, Pierre Thomas and Jason Ryan

A single engine plane smashed into the side of an Austin office buildling today and authorities are investigating reports that the pilot may have burned down his house down and then steered the plane into the building in a suicidal attack on the IRS, sources told ABC News.

The pilot was identified as Andrew Stack. The IRS has offices in the building complex that was struck.

Eyewitnesses who saw the plane slam into the building said the pilot appeared to be in control of the plane in the moments before the crash.

“It hit it and the strange thing was the engine seemed to me to running at full power. It didn’t seem like the plane was in trouble. It was going full blast. It’s not a very fast airplane, but this thing was really moving fast,” pilot Jerry Cullen told to ABC’s Austin affiliate KVUE.

Beth Jones told ABCNews.com that she was headed downtown on Highway 183 when she spotted the plane overhead and immediately noticed how low it was flying.

“The plane was just coming down,” she said. “He was so low you could actually see him in the plane.”

Jones said that in the brief glimpse she got of the pilot he looked to be awake and not struggling. As her car passed under the plane’s path she heard a “large explosion” and immediately pulled over to see the building in flames.

She said the plane flew “just straight, right in” to the complex. “You think, did he go in there on purpose?” Jones asked.

Federal officials said shortly after the crash into the Austin office complex that houses FBI and IRS offices that they had no reason to suspect the incident was terrorism related.

A spokesman for the IRS said 190 people work in that office. “We are still in the process of accounting for all of our employees,” the spokesman said.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was promptly briefed on the crash, DHS spokesman Matt Chandler told ABC News.

“The Secretary is aware of the situation in Austin. We do not yet know the cause of the plane crash. At this time, we have no reason to believe there is a nexus to criminal or terrorist activity. We are in the process of coordinating with state officials and other federal partners to gather more information. At this time, we will defer additional questions to local officials and the FAA,” Chandler said.

Follow link for original article:

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/texas-plane-crash-austin-office-complex-hit-single/story?id=9874966

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Reprinted from: the Star-Ledger

Written by: MaryAnne Spoto

WALL TOWNSHIP — A plane that crashed at Monmouth Executive Airport in Wall Township killing all five people aboard was in the air for seven or eight minutes after takeoff before it slammed into a field at the airport, a federal investigator said this morning.

Authorities have not yet released the identities of the victims but said they had recently taken off when the Cessna 337 Skymaster crashed.

Jose Obregon, an investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board said the plane had completed its ascension pattern but flew back over the airport for an unknown reason. He said investigators do not know yet whether the plane’s pilot made a mayday call on the radio.

Witnesses reported seeing a piece of the plane come off as the Cessna 337 Skymaster approached the Monmouth Executive Airport runway and lost control

The plane nose-dived into a field adjacent to the runway, killing all five people on board. Their names have not been released pending next of kin notification.

Wall Township Police Capt. Tim Clayton said the victims were three men, a teenager and a young child. Clayton said at least three were related. Two were from New Jersey, the other three from elsewhere.

The Cessna 337 Skymaster’s engines are located in the nose and behind the fuselage. It was registered to Jack Air LLC in Wilmington, Del.

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/02/small_plane_had_taken_off_monm.html

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WRITTEN BY: SAMANTHA ABERNETHY

Reprinted from: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

BOULDER, Colo. — Investigators plan to talk to other pilots to determine whether they heard any communications between two small planes just before an in-flight collision in Colorado killed all three people on board both planes.

With no black box data, investigators are relying heavily on video, photos and witnesses’ testimony to determine what led to the fiery crash Saturday, National Transportation Safety Board investigator Jennifer Rodi said Sunday.

The crash occurred about 1:30 p.m. Saturday near the Boulder Municipal Airport when a southbound Cirrus SR20 collided with a westbound Piper Pawnee that was towing the glider, causing the “immediate disintegration and explosion of both airplanes,” Rodi said.

The pilot of the glider was able to cut loose just before the collision and fly to safety.

The Boulder County Coroner’s Office said Sunday that 25-year-old Alexander Howard Gilmer of Evergreen, Colo., was the pilot of the Piper Pawnee.

The coroner’s office tentatively identified the pilot of the Cirrus as 58-year-old Robert Matthews of Boulder, and the passenger as 56-year-old Mark A. Matthews of Englewood, Colo.

Young Kim said he and his girlfriend were walking out of her condo Saturday when they heard a loud boom.

“We looked up in the sky. We saw a glider and right next to it what looked like a big black ball of fire,” he said. “It looked at first like fireworks coming out of it.”

His girlfriend, Barb Maiberger, said, “You’re going, ‘This can’t be real.’ But it was real, and I knew something was wrong.”

Kim started running about a half-mile to the scene. “You could see a big smokestack coming out from the wreckage, and dozens of people running toward the scene hoping to rescue someone. As you got closer, you could actually smell the fumes from the jet fuel,” Kim said.

“I was just hoping maybe somebody survived,” he said.

Several witnesses have said they saw people plunging from the planes, but Rodi said it’s hard to tell whether they saw people or airplane parts falling.

An amateur video shot at the scene showed a plane on fire, floating to the ground trailing thick, black smoke and a parachute. Sheriff’s officials said the parachute was designed to deploy if a plane was disabled and was attached to the plane’s wreckage, not a person.

The crash spread debris over a 1 1/2 mile region of prairie. No one on the ground was hurt.

Three people were aboard the glider that managed to disconnect from the Piper Pawnee as the Cirrus clipped the tow line, just before the two planes collided, Boulder County sheriff’s officials said.

The pilot of the glider was Ruben Bakker, his mother-in-law Deborah Tjarks said. She said he saw the collision about to happen and released the glider and banked but still flew through the flames. Bakker did not return a call for comment.

The single-engine Cirrus left the Boulder airport with two people on board around 12:45 p.m. Saturday and was lost on radar for about 10 minutes, Rodi said.

Sheriff’s officials said the Piper Pawnee belonged to Mile High Gliding Inc. and had just taken off from the Boulder airport before the crash with the glider in tow.

The Cirrus had the capability to provide data from avionics, like a black box, but the avionics were destroyed in the crash and fire, Rodi said.

Investigators working as light snow fell Sunday planned to recover parts of the plane until dark, then start again Monday morning.

They will examine maintenance records, the pilots’ flight records and look at paint transfers on the plane parts to help determine what speeds the planes were traveling.

Rodi wouldn’t speculate on whether air congestion is a problem in the area.

In the airspace the planes were using, the pilots didn’t have to communicate with air traffic control towers but could have communicated with each other. Rodi said investigators would talk with other pilots who might have heard the pilots of the two planes talking with each other. It wasn’t immediately known how many other pilots were in the area at the time.

For original article follow the below link:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j7NlPfb5bBEAPTZEpc78dCKofNvwD9DNM7M80

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Reprinted from KiroTV.com

SAND POINT, Alaska — The body of a man and a Seattle woman, both pilots, were found after their plane crashed Friday near Sand Point, Alaska.

On Sunday, the Coast Guard and Alaska State Troopers told KIRO 7 that divers found wreckage of the ACE Air Beechcraft 1900C with two bodies inside.

The two were identified as 28-year-old Ameer Ali and 23-year-old Emily Lewis. A Lewis family spokeswoman said Lewis grew up in the Seattle area and was engaged to be married this year. Ellie Materi said the family would like people to know that Lewis “was a funny, sweet wonderful person who always loved flying.”

Lewis recently moved to Alaska to work as a pilot.

The Coast Guard said the aircraft crashed shortly after takeoff from the Sand Point airport.

The plane had been bound for Anchorage with a load of fish and mail.

The 28-year-old Ali grew up in New York and came to Alaska after serving as a flight mechanic in the Marines.

For the orginal article please follow the below link:

http://www.kirotv.com/news/22332190/detail.html

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Written by: The Associated Press

Published by: The Seattle PI

ELYRIA, Ohio — A small plane crashed Monday as it approached the Cleveland area from Gainesville, Fla., killing at least three of the four people aboard, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

The plane was approaching the Lorain County Regional Airport in Elyria shortly after 2 p.m. when it crashed, said FAA spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory. It was not immediately clear whether the fourth passenger survived.

Melinda Mengelson of Florahome, Fla., the wife of co-pilot John Mengelson, 47, said authorities told her that her husband was one of the three people who died.

He and pilot Wesley Roemer worked for Kenneth Brown, the president of Kenn Air Corp., Mengelson said. She said Brown’s parents, Donald and Shirley Brown, of Lorain County, Ohio, also were aboard.

Donald Brown is credited with inventing drop ceilings, The Plain Dealer of Cleveland reported.

Authorities have not publicly identified the crash victims. A message seeking comment was left for Lorain County Coroner Paul Matus.

An FAA database shows that the fixed-wing, multiengine MU-2B-60 turboprop plane is owned by Mitts Corp. of Gainesville and was manufactured by Mitsubishi.

New York-based Mitsubishi Heavy Industries America Inc. planned to be at the site Tuesday.

The company released a statement to say its “thoughts and prayers are with the families of the pilot and passengers.

“This is the first fatal MU-2 accident in almost 4 years,” the statement said. MU-2 series planes were involved in 21 fatal accidents from 1997 to early December 2008, according to Mitsubishi.

The series was manufactured between 1967 and 1985, and the planes carry seven to 10 people can also be used for cargo.

About 370 operate in the U.S., and Mitsubishi still supports the vehicles.

The cause of the crash hasn’t been determined. Isham Cory said the FAA is investigating and the National Transportation Safety Board will lead the inquiry.

http://www.seattlepi.com/national/1110ap_us_fatal_plane_crash.html

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Written by: The Associated Press

Published by: The Seattle Times

MANLIUS TOWNSHIP, Mich. —

Hope College says a student from Kenya was piloting a small plane when it crashed in southwest Michigan, killing himself and a student from Illinois.

Hope College spokesman Tom Renner said Monday that 23-year-old David Otai (OH’-ty) of Nairobi, Kenya, and 20-year-old Emma Biagioni (bya-jee-OH’-nee) of St. Charles, Ill., were aboard the single engine Cessna 172 that crashed Sunday.

Renner says Otai’s mother helped run Africa Inland Missions, an air service to missions in central Africa. Renner says Otai wanted to get a commercial pilot’s license so he could fly for the service.

The Allegan County sheriff’s department says the plane made a distress call shortly before crashing in a snow-covered field in Manlius Township.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2010828065_apusplanecrashhopestudents.html