Overflew Intended Stop In MN; F-16s Trail, Watch As
Aircraft Crashes
A businessman from St. Paul, MN died late Friday night, after
his Beechcraft Baron 56TC overshot its intended destination and
flew on for more than two hours, before it evidently ran out of
fuel and crashed in West Virginia.
The Wisconsin National Guard deployed two F-16s to intercept the
aircraft -- which departed Glendive, MT Friday afternoon enroute to
St. Paul Downtown Airport -- after it flew over the Twin Cities
area and turned southeast. The aircraft was flying at 27,000 feet
when controllers lost radio contact with pilot William Roger
Cammack near the St. Paul airport.
Two other F-16s met the aircraft as it crossed into Michigan.
Those fighters flanked the Baron throughout the remainder of its
flight, and attempted to contact the pilot several times with no
success. After about two hours, the F-16 pilots could only watch
helplessly as the Baron evidently ran out of fuel, and went down in
a clearing near Winfield, WV. The crash missed a nearby house by
about 250 feet.
Although no official cause of the accident has been determined,
family members of Cammack told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune they
believe the 56-year-old business owner, father of three and Civil
Air Patrol member, lost consciousness sometime during his
flight.
The incident is eerily reminiscent of the 1999 Lear 35 crash
that killed golfer Payne Stewart and several others. In that case,
the aircraft lost cabin pressure... and all on board were either
dead or incapacitated long before the flight from Orlando to Dallas
ran out of fuel and crashed in the upper Midwest.
Cammack's aircraft, N18LL, was a 1968 Beech Baron 56TC, a
limited-production variant of the popular twin that mated the B-60
Duke's turbocharged Lycoming engines to the short-bodied Baron 55
fuselage (a B-55 is shown in the file photo above.)
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IDENTIFICATION
Regis#: 18LL
Make/Model: BE56 Description: 56
Turbo Baron
Date: 03/18/2006 Time: 0337
Event Type: Accident Highest Injury:
Fatal Mid Air: N Missing:
N
Damage: Destroyed
LOCATION
City: CHARLESTON State: WV Country:
US
DESCRIPTION
ACFT CRASHED UNDER UNKNOWN CIRCUMSTANCES AFTER FUEL
EXHAUTION, THE ONE
PERSON ON BOARD WAS FATALLY INJURED, 10 NNW OF CHARLESTON,
WV
INJURY DATA Total
Fatal: 1
# Crew: 1 Fat:
1 Ser:
0 Min:
0 Unk:
# Pass: 0 Fat:
0 Ser:
0 Min:
0 Unk:
# Grnd:
Fat: 0 Ser:
0 Min:
0 Unk:
WEATHER: UNK
OTHER DATA
Departed: GLENDIVE,
MT
Dep Date: Dep.
Time:
Destination: SAINT PAUL,
MN Flt
Plan: IFR Wx
Briefing:
Last Radio Cont:
Last Clearance:
FAA FSDO: CHARLESTON, WV
(EA09)
Entry date: 03/20/2006