scooter2525
Very well Member
An update on the crash... RIP to all... http://www.columbusdispatch.com/liv...rash.ART_ART_09-02-08_A1_CLB6VUN.html?sid=101
Plane goes down near airport, killing 3
Tuesday, September 2, 2008 3:03 AM
By Jodi Andes, Dana Wilson and Jennifer Smith Richards
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Jeff Hinckley | Dispatch
A State Highway Patrol helicopter hovers over the site of a fiery plane crash in northern Pickaway County.
Firefighters head to the crash site.
WBNS-10TV VIDEO
The pilot of the Air Tahoma flight knew he had problems minutes after takeoff yesterday from Rickenbacker Airport.
A few miles southwest of the airport, he radioed back to say he had to turn the cargo plane around, but that there was no need to have emergency crews on hand, Pickaway County Sheriff Dwight Radcliff said of the pilot's radio traffic.
But it didn't appear that the plane had a chance, said Chrissy Cauger, who was driving nearby as it crashed.
"It didn't look like they were turning around at all," she said. "The plane was flying really low, and then all I saw was fire and smoke."
The plane crashed in woods and then a cornfield in northern Pickaway County, killing the pilot and two others onboard. All were from Florida.
"We heard the plane fly low, and it sounded so loud it shook the barn," farmer Kevin Roberts said. "Then we heard a boom; we looked out and saw smoke."
There was no fire or smoke coming from the plane before it landed, Cauger said, but its unusually low altitude made it impossible to ignore.
The State Highway Patrol identified the three victims as Urs Anderegg, 58, and Sean Gardiner, 41, both of Miami, and James Monahan, 57, of Plantation, Fla. The patrol had not determined which one was the pilot.
Patrol Lt. Patrick Vessels said the plane was carrying no cargo when it crashed.
Robert Sayegh, Anderegg's son-in-law, said last night that it is unknown who was at the controls of the plane but that Air Tahoma cast the mission as training.
He said his father-in-law had flown for Air Tahoma for two years.
Holly Monahan, the wife of James Monahan, said last night that she was told the bodies were unrecognizable.
"We've been married 40 years, and I'm hoping like hell it's not him," she said from Plantation.
Flight 587 took off from Rickenbacker Airport about 12:05 p.m., said Angie Tabor, spokeswoman for Port Columbus. Federal Aviation Administration officials said the flight was headed to Mansfield.
The Convair 580 aircraft was about 80 feet long with a 100-foot wingspan. Although it was designed to carry only cargo, it could seat 50 passengers and crew members if converted into an airliner.
The plane was owned by Air Tahoma Inc., an 11-year-old cargo-airline company with headquarters at Rickenbacker. The airline is a subcontractor for carriers such as DHL.
Air Tahoma officials declined to comment on the crash yesterday.
The crash site created problems for the seven fire departments that responded. The plane skidded through a section of woods, coming to a fiery halt in the cornfield. Fire engines plowed through a harvested part of the cornfield to reach the wreckage.
The remaining corn in the field was due to be harvested in a few weeks, said Don Peters, whose family owns the farm.
This was not the first plane crash on the farm. Peters, whose family has owned the land since 1870, said he can remember his father telling him about two B-17 bombers clipping each other in the air during World War II. One made it back to what was then Lockbourne Army Air Base, and the other crashed on the family's farm south of the site of yesterday's crash.
This was Air Tahoma's second crash. An Air Tahoma plane crashed in northern Kentucky near Cincinnati four years ago, killing the co-pilot.
In the past, the FAA has cited Air Tahoma for "flight operations" problems, most recently in 2005.
Yesterday's crash site is also not far from the fatal crash of a Cessna in December. Two men were killed: James A. Babcock, 58, of Wooster, Ohio, a pilot for Castle Aviation, and Michael B. Bratek, 34, of Blasdell, N.Y., an AirNet pilot who was a passenger.
As Cauger watched the plane go down yesterday, she worried that it could have come down on the car she and her 4-year-old daughter were in. Or it could have crashed on the barn where the farmers worked, or on one of the nearby farm homes.
"It could have been so much worse," Cauger said.
