Thu, Apr 27, 2006
No Mechanical Issues Found With Aircraft
It wasn't a mechanical
problem that brought down a Cessna U206G Stationair last Thursday
near Bloomington, IN, in an accident that claimed the lives of
five Indiana University graduate music students.
That's the word from the National Transportation Safety Board,
which issued its Preliminary Report on the accident Wednesday.
Investigators found that the aircraft had fuel onboard, and all
systems appear to have been functioning normally when the
Stationair impacted "trees and terrain while on approach" to Monroe
County Airport (BMG) shortly before midnight on April 20.
"The on-scene investigation did not reveal any pre-impact
anomalies," the report concludes.
The NTSB also reports the instrument-rated pilot, 24-year-old
Georgia Joshi, had filed a flight plan and had given no indication
that her plane was experiencing problems in the moments leading up
to the crash. According to the prelim, at approximately two minutes
before the crash, a controller from the Terre Haute International
Airport-Hulman Field air traffic control tower advised the flight
that the airport's CTAF was 120.77.
The response from the aircraft's pilot was a polite "Thank you
sir." No further communications were reported from the accident
aircraft.
The airport was in
instrument conditions at the time of the accident. According to the
airport's recorded weather broadcast, at 2340 -- five minutes
before the accident -- winds were out of the southwest at 5 knots,
and visibility of one statute mile in mist. The sky was overcast at
100 feet, and the temperature of 17 degrees C was just one
degree above the dew point.
The plane was on an ILS approach to Runway 35 when it went
down.
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