OWLS HEAD, Maine — Federal, state and local investigators were back Saturday morning at the scene of the plane crash that claimed the lives of three people whose identities are still not known.
Officials now believe they know who the victims are but are waiting to contact family members, Knox County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Tim Carroll said Saturday morning. A formal identification would come from the Maine Medical Examiner’s Office.
The victims are adults, one from Maine and two from outside the state, Carroll said.
The medical examiner was at the scene Saturday morning to remove the bodies from the wreckage.
The tail number was too charred and damaged to read, so officials did not know Friday evening where the plane was from or who the pilot might be. Officials had checked with airports to see if there were any reports of planes that had not arrived as expected.
The Maine Forest Service arrived at 9:30 a.m. with a helicopter and working with the Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board on removing the wreckage of the Cessna 172 single-engine plane, Northgraves said. An FAA investigator arrived Friday night while the NTSB team is expected to arrive from Florida late Saturday afternoon.
The plane crashed at about 4:44 p.m. Friday when it was taking off and struck a pickup truck, driven by a pilot, that was driving across the airport. The plane then rose to as high as 100 feet off the ground, banked to the left and crashed, with the wreckage largely ending up about 200 yards into the woods near the Dublin Road adjacent to the runway. The aircraft was consumed by flames.
The skies were clear but it was dark at the time of the crash.
The truck was authorized to be on the runway, but there has been no determination yet of what communications had been made by the truck operator and the plane’s pilot. The truck remains at the scene of the collision with a Knox County Sheriff’s Office cruiser next to it and has been impounded as part of the investigation.
The driver of the truck was not injured.
Knox County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Tim Carroll said that the truck had been on the runway after parking another plane in a hangar on the other end of the airport.
The airport has been reopened to all air traffic, Northgraves said Saturday morning.
The Knox County Regional Airport operates under visual flight rules. Airplane pilots are not required to have radios in their aircraft but are required to take view of their environment before taking off or landing, Northgraves said. There is no control tower.
The airport has a frequency that is available for aircraft or vehicles at the airport to use. The frequency is published so that planes coming in from other locations know how to be in contact.
The Cessna that crashed was equipped with a radio, the airport manager said. Other people had heard the pilot communicating earlier in the evening.
Northgraves said the truck also had a radio but it is not known what, if any, communication there was between the two.
Small, noncommercial planes are not required to have flight recorders. The airport has video cameras on the property but none captured the crash, Northgraves said.
The Knox County Regional Airport had 55,125 estimated takeoffs and landings during the past year, according to the manager. Of those, 27,000 takeoffs and landings were from itinerant aircraft, those from outside the area.
The Knox County Regional Airport and the surrounding area have been the site of a number of plane crashes over the years, including the worst commercial aviation disaster in Maine history.
Downeast Airlines Flight 46, a DeHavilland Twin Otter propjet bound for Owls Head from Boston, crashed into a ledge in a heavily wooded area 1.2 miles short of the runway in thick fog on the night of May 30, 1979. Seventeen of the 18 people aboard were killed.
Although the National Transportation Safety Board investigation attributed that crash to pilot error, the management policies of Downeast Airlines also were cited as contributing factors. NTSB investigators stated in a report issued a year after the crash that testimony produced allegations that Downeast Airlines owner and president Robert Stenger promoted a culture that pressured pilots to land in Owls Head rather than divert flights to Augusta in poor weather conditions.
A pilot from Topsfield, Mass., was killed on June 23, 2008, when her single-engine, four-seat Piper Cherokee crashed in shallow coastal waters as she was preparing to practice approaches and landings at the airport.
Janet Strong, 73, died when she crashed near Crockett Beach Road, which is less than a mile from the airport.
Student pilot Peter Shorey of Newcastle was practicing soft-field takeoff maneuvers on July 21, 1998, in the Knox County Flying School’s 1968 Piper Cherokee when “it pancaked, crabbed to the left and crashed,” his flight instructor Edward Sleeper said at the time. Shorey needed 26 stitches to close the gash to his head suffered when the plane slammed into a low-lying bog area a few yards from the Knox County Airport runway. The plane was only about 10 feet off the runway when it came down.
how the heck does Owls Head NOT know who was on the plane, or which plane it was? Don’t flights have to receive clearance for take-off or landing?
yea something doesn’t add up with this story. One would assume the control tower would have the tail number on file from the days activities; don’t they keep a log?
I don’t think Knox county airport has a tower.
I see, thanks for the info.
On small airports, like Owls Head, they don’t have a tower to call for their clearance.They have a radio freq that they call for any planes or ground vehicles in area to see if it’s clear to take off.
This is an uncontrolled field, meaning there is no air traffic control.
ah, thank you. –
If it’s any insight to anyone there’s a small cesna that hasn’t returned to the general aviation in Bangor not sure if that’s the plane or not they found in Owls Head..
There are only two regular control tower equipped airports in the state, Bangor and Portland. Back in the 90’s I used to fly into the Portland Jetport after the tower had closed for the evening. The rules then revert back to the same used at non-tower fields like Owls Head.
The small regional airports like Knox County Regional(RKD) operate with what is known as CTAF/Unicom radio frequencies(123.05). Pilots are required to be on this freq and announce the movement of their aircraft on the field prior to departure. When in position to take off, they are required to announce the runway they are taking off from and their departure direction.
The truck on the runway should have been equipped with either a hard wired or hand held radio tuned to the CTAF/Unicom freq(123.05). I know the article said it had one….on, off???
Since none of us were there, or listening to the RKD unicom, we do not know if any of the above requirements were met.
However, being a pilot, it will be interesting to learn what the driver of the truck(and a pilot, according to the article) will have to say in this tragic incident. Obviously there was a lack of communication and/or loss of visual contact on the part of the pilot and the truck driver.
Unless the regulations have changed, aircraft radio communication is not required in class E airspace or for operations from a typical airport in E. Obviously it is a very good practice, but it isn’t regulatory.
It IS FAA “recommended” procedure. And we’re talking about ground communications.
Any pilot who operates as PIC of an aircraft on a non towered airport is extremely negligent in disregarding this very basic radio procedure….especially since there is semi-regular commercial air traffic into/out of RKD.
As I said, it is very good practice, but it isn’t regulatory. You can legally operate VFR from Rockland with no operational radio on the aircraft. That would include taxi and takeoff, and it would not be considered negligent to operate that way if done so properly.
Just pointing out that it was not a requirement for the aircraft. I am not sure what the regulations state about other non-aircraft surface vehicles.
I agree that it is silly not to be monitoring CTAF and making position reports if you have the option to do so.
Maybe it SHOULD be mandatory then. You can’t have a 20oz soda in NYC, but it’s okay not to have to use a radio at an airport? And just wth was that numbskull crossing the runway for anyway? It seems to me that an airport should only have vehicles running parallel to runways, if at all. Senseless loss of life here.
Keep in mind that the facts are still unknown. Plenty of accidents have happened when pilots, and I am sure surface vehicles, use radios, but mistakenly report the wrong position. We will have to wait for the NTSB report for all of the details.
You’re right, I should wait for all the facts. I guess I’m just tired of seeing so many senseless deaths everyday in the BDN. Most of them seem to be caused from people behaving stupidly.
Airplanes, even small ones, have good running lights.
Unless the pickup was parked on the runway prior to the pilot initiating the takeoff, it seems the truck driver is at fault. You don’t drive across an uncontrolled runway without checking to see that it is clear first.
An apparently he was a pilot, so he would be doubly aware of the potential hazard.
What’s the sense of having video cameras on site if they’re not operational??..Just sayin’
They were on, just didnt capture the crash that happened for away from the terminal building.
Oh gotcha!
Knox VillageSoup reporting a story of an 11 year old girl who said she saw the plane “bouncing” then heard a crash and saw no lights on the plane. Interesting change of events before we go blaming the driver of the truck! Freak accident, not sure we should put the blame on anyone.
A TRUCK WAS ON THE RUNWAY!!! WHAT IS HARD TO UNDERSTAND ABOUT THAT???? A TRUCK WAS ON THE RUNWAY!!!! RUNWAYS ARE FOR PLANES–A TRUCK WAS ON THE RUNWAY. You can’t blame the pilot because A TRUCK WAS ON THE RUNWAY!!!!
This is a classic situation where some are responding who don’t know the facts or the rules. These uncontrolled airports operate under a set of “see and be seen” rules that do not require radio communication, but can be significantly enhanced by using the radio on the CTAF (common traffic advisory) frequency. These rules have worked effectively for decades as long as all parties keep their eyes outside the cockpit. Obviously that did not work in this situation and I am confident we will eventually find out why.