HOULTON, Maine — As of late Friday afternoon, officials had not released the name of the pilot killed after his plane clipped some trees in foggy conditions and ended up in a pond a mile from the Houlton International Airport early Thursday morning.
The pilot was the lone occupant of the twin engine Piper PA34 that had taken off the previous evening from an airport in Goose Bay, Labrador, and was bound for Merritt Island, Florida. His body was recovered from the wreckage late Thursday afternoon and was taken to the state medical examiner’s office in Augusta for identification.
On Friday, Mark Belserene of the medical examiner’s office referred all questions to local authorities.
A message left for Houlton Police Chief Joe McKenna was not immediately returned Friday.
The pilot was known at the airport, according to Benjamin Torres, Houlton International Airport fixed base operator.
“I know this gentleman,” Torres said Thursday. “He’s a really good guy and I am sorry [it happened]. He has time in that craft [and] he is no stranger to aviation, that is for sure.”
On Friday, Torres said the pilot’s family had been notified, but he declined to identify the man. Torres said the man had passed through the airport a half dozen or more times ferrying planes and that he was from France.
“He always came in at odd hours,” Torres said Friday. “He knew some of the regular pilots here in passing to say ‘Hi’, but no, I would not say he was on a first-name basis with any of them.”
Officials with the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board were at the crash site off White Settlement Road Friday recovering the plane’s engines from the bottom of a man-made pond.
On Thursday the Houlton Fire Department drained about half the water from the pond, or more than 100,000 gallons, so officials could recover the plane’s heavily damaged fuselage.
All of the wreckage is being taken to a hanger at the Houlton airport, where FAA and NTSB officials will attempt to reconstruct the aircraft and determine what happened.
The plane was not equipped with a “black box” recording device, Torres said.
“They will examine [the wreckage] and collect all the data they can,” he said. “Then they will write up their report.”
The plane was due at Houlton International Airport around 1 a.m. Thursday after leaving the airport in Goose Bay, Labrador, at about 9:15 p.m. Wednesday. McKenna on Thursday said officials believe the flight originated in Europe and was on its way to Florida.
Officials with U.S. Customs and Border Protection were at the airport in Houlton to meet the plane as it entered the U.S. and reported that it was an hour overdue, McKenna said.
At 2 a.m. the customs officials reported hearing the plane approach the airport on its designated flight path from the south. Soon after, they reported hearing what sounded like the engines failing and a crashing sound.
McKenna said there was “zero visibility” at the time because of fog conditions, and a search was started immediately off the runway.
According to the website flightaware.com, the pilot’s logged flight plan from Goose Bay to Houlton was 625 miles and he actually flew 640 miles before crashing. The flight plan indicates the plane was owned by Growl Aircraft Inc., of Merritt Island, Florida.
Attempts to reach anyone at Growl Aircraft were unsuccessful on Friday.
According to the aircraft manufacturer’s website, the Piper PA34 has a range of 828 nautical miles with 45 minutes of reserve fuel.
Information on flightware.com indicates the distance between Goose Bay and Houlton is 597 miles.
Parts of the plane were found in a small man-made pond off White Settlement Road while a wing and other debris were found on the ground and in trees surrounding the area.
On Friday, as a crew with a wrecker used hooks and chains to drag the engines from the pond, Torres described seeing a few trees snapped off near the tops, and what looked like personal effects, pieces of the aircraft and papers scattered around the area.
Officials with the Maine Department of Environmental Protection were also at the scene mopping up spilled aviation fuel and oil, Torres said.
“There is no large impact crater,” he said. “But it looks like an accident scene.”
