Lack of training? - Piper Cheyenne

Pilot in fatal crash may have lacked enough training
 A Piper Cheyenne crashed a quarter mile short of the runway at Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport on April 12.

The NTSB will investigate all aspects of an April 12 plane crash but pilot experience will be a focus.
Pilot John Patrick Van Ommeren completed an initial training course to fly a Piper Cheyenne just one week before his plane crashed near Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport, killing all four on board.


That was one of the details in a National Transportation Safety Board preliminary report released Thursday. Although NTSB will investigate all aspects of the April 12 accident, pilot experience likely will become a primary focus.

Also killed in the accident were Monique Van Ommeren, 49, Sacha Van Ommeren,15, and Sharissa Van Ommeren, 13, all residents of Paramaribo, Suriname.

John Patrick Van Ommeren, 51, initially mentioned no problems to air traffic controllers after taking off from Orlando.

While approaching Fort Lauderdale, he reported smoke in the cockpit and was told he could use any runway. After lining up to land on the diagonal runway, he called out "mayday" several times before the plane plummeted.

It crashed a quarter mile short of the runway into a nature preserve, broke apart and erupted into flames at about 4:25 p.m. on that Sunday.

Records showed Van Ommeren had 1,221 hours of total flight time and was authorized to fly multi-engine airplanes and on instruments, the NTSB report said.

Although that is a fair amount of experience, investigators will try to determine how many hours of training Van Ommeren had in the seven-seat Cheyenne, a complex aircraft.

Records also showed the twin-engine Cheyenne, built in 1979, had received a comprehensive maintenance inspection on April 3, nine days before the accident.