Cessna 152 Plane Crash Kills Pilot and Student

June 10, 2006

Cessna 152 Plane Crash Kills Pilot and Student

Investigators on Friday identified the bodies of a Scottsdale flight instructor and her student pilot who were killed when their small plane crashed into a mountain in the West Valley.

Officials said the instructor, Ondrea M. Benner, 34, of Scottsdale, and her student, Clint A. Bergum, 21, of Michigan, were the victims. Bergum was living in Phoenix but his primary residence was in Ypsilanti, Mich.

The wreckage of the single-engine Cessna 152 was spotted Thursday afternoon by a construction worker on a mountainside above the Quintero Golf & Country Club in Peoria. No one witnessed the crash, and the instructor and student were dead when emergency crews arrived, Peoria police spokesman Mike Tellef said.

Federal Aviation Administration records indicate Benner was issued a commercial pilot’s license in September 2003. FAA records also indicate she had been issued her flight instructor license two years ago as of June 26.

The aircraft belonged to the Pan Am International Flight Academy at Deer Valley Airport in Phoenix, Tellef said.

The academy referred calls to its corporate headquarters in Florida, which was closed Friday evening.

The cause of the crash is unknown. It will be investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board and the FAA.

SOURCE: Staff and Wire Reports

Comments (0)

June 2, 2006

Learjet 35 Plane Crash

GROTON, Conn. — A Learjet 35 registered to religious broadcaster Pat Robertson crashed in Long Island Sound while flying in heavy fog Friday, killing both pilots, authorities said. All three passengers escaped without serious injury.

Robertson was not aboard.

The twin-engine Learjet 35 went down a half-mile short of the runway at Groton-New London Airport. Authorities said the passengers were able to get out on their own and were pulled from the water and taken to the hospital with minor injuries.

Preliminary information showed that the plane may have hit an approach light mounted in a cove near the airport, said Christopher Cooper, a spokesman for the state Department of Transportation.

SOURCE: CBS13

Comments (0)

January 8, 2003

US Airways Express Flight 5481 Crash

On January 8, 2003, about 0847:28 eastern standard time, Air Midwest (doing business as US Airways Express) flight 5481, a Raytheon (Beechcraft) 1900D, N233YV, crashed shortly after takeoff from runway 18R at Charlotte-Douglas International Airport, Charlotte, North Carolina. The 2 flight crewmembers and 19 passengers aboard the airplane were killed, 1 person on the ground received minor injuries, and the airplane was destroyed by impact forces and a postcrash fire. Flight 5481 was a regularly scheduled passenger flight to Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport, Greer, South Carolina, and was operating under the provisions of 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 121 on an instrument flight rules flight plan. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed at the time of the accident.

The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable cause(s) of this accident as follows: The airplane’s loss of pitch control during take-off. The loss of pitch control resulted from the incorrect rigging of the elevator system compounded by the airplane’s aft center of gravity, which was substaintially aft of the certified aft limit.

Contributing to the cause of the accident were (1) Air Midwest’s lack of oversight of the work being performed at the Huntington, West Virginia, maintenance station; (2) Air Midwest’s maintenance procedures and documentation; (3) Air Midwest’s weight and balance program at the time of the accident; (4) the Raytheon Aerospace quality assurance inspector’s failure to detect the incorrect rigging of the elevator control system; (5) the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) average weight assumptions in its weight and balance program guidance at the time of the accident; and (6) the FAA’s lack of oversight of Air Midwest’s maintenance program and its weight and balance program.

SOURCE: NTSB

Comments (0)