NTSB: Pilot reported struggles before Hamptons plane
crash
An air traffic controller declared an emergency after the
pilot said he was attempting to fly visually without instruments and had an
unreliable attitude indicator, the report said.
Rescuers search for victims of the Oct. 13
plane crash. Photo Credit: James Carbone
The pilot of a
small private plane reported he was struggling to fly in poor visibility and
could not rely on a key flight instrument before his aircraft broke apart and
crashed into the sea off the Hamptons in early October, killing all three
aboard, federal officials said.
The Piper PA-34 Seneca
flown by its owner Munidat "Raj" Persaud, 41, of Waterbury, Connecticut, "was
substantially damaged when it experienced an in-flight breakup" and crashed into
the Atlantic Ocean off Quogue on Oct. 13, the National Transportation
Safety Board said in a preliminary report.
One witness said the
aircraft, which took off from Danbury, Connecticut, did a nosedive from out of
the clouds, and another witness reported hearing a "pop" and seeing two large
pieces of the plane falling from the sky, according to the report.
An air
traffic controller declared an emergency after the pilot said he was attempting
to fly visually without instruments and had an "unreliable" attitude indicator,
a flight instrument that informs the pilot of the orientation of the aircraft
relative to the horizon, according to the report. There was light rain, wind and
clouds reported in Westhampton Beach when the plane crashed around 11 a.m., the
report said.
The aircraft sank to the ocean floor at a depth of about 20
feet, the NTSB report said. "A portion of the right wing was recovered floating
above the airplane about ½ mile offshore," it added.
The Federal Aviation
Administration said in a statement Thursday there was "no history of any
accidents or incidents on the aircraft."
Aviation experts Matthew Clarke
and Ross Neher, attorneys based in Portland, Oregon, said in-flight breakup can
happen "when an aircraft is making extreme maneuvers, which could occur when a
pilot is trying to get around bad weather, or has inadvertently entered into
zero visibility conditions and has become spatially disoriented. A working
attitude indicator can be critical in keeping from becoming spatially
disoriented when in zero visibility conditions."
In a statement they said
that "radar data needs to be analyzed to determine whether this aircraft made
any extreme maneuvers shortly before falling out of the sky."
Officials
with the NTSB, which cautioned its findings could change before they are
finalized, did not comment on why the plane might have broken apart in the air.
A spokeswoman for Piper Aircraft, based in Vero Beach, Florida, said she
was not aware of any other PA-34 Seneca that had broken apart in
midair.
Piper, she said, is fully cooperating with the NTSB. "This is an
ongoing investigation and as such we are not allowed to comment on it," she said
by telephone.
Jennifer Landrum, 45, of Augusta, Georgia, and Richard
Terbrusch, 53, of Ridgefield, Connecticut, also were killed in the crash of the
twin-engine plane that FAA records show was manufactured in 1978. The couple,
making the best of a long-distance relationship, were flying to Charleston,
South Carolina.
Persaud was a flight instructor who owned two firms that
train pilots in Connecticut. The Piper was a recent purchase; with the FAA
confirming his ownership is dated July 2. Persaud was certified to fly single-
and multi-engine and instrument planes, the NTSB said, adding he reported 4,000
hours of flight experience on his latest medical certificate.
After
taking off that Saturday morning, Persaud told controllers he expected to fly
with "visual flight rules," at an altitude of about 8,500 feet above the mean
sea level, the NTSB said.
However, Persaud kept climbing, rising through
12,900 feet and then hitting 15,700 feet; at that point a Boston air traffic
controller advised him that other aircraft in the area were not flying visually
but with their instruments, the NTSB said.
Asked to confirm that he
could still fly visually, Persaud answered that he was "trying to maintain
visual meteorological conditions," and he mentioned the unreliability of the
attitude indicator.
That is when the controller declared an emergency,
and suggested the pilot head toward Westchester County Airport, which said it
had visual flight conditions, the NTSB said.
Persaud asked for the
ceiling - the height of the cloud tops - and told it was 19,000 feet, he replied
he would climb to that altitude. Informing the controller that the airplane was
flying visually "on top," Persaud, still flying southeast, said he could not
descend below the clouds, the report said.
The pilot then requested
directions to areas where the weather was clear; again, the controller
instructed him to turn west, but the plane, according to the NTSB, continued on
its southeast course.
"About 2 minutes later, after the controller
repeated the instruction to turn west, the airplane entered a figure-eight turn
and began to descend rapidly," the NTSB said. "Radio and radar contact was lost
shortly thereafter."
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