Findings Verify Aircraft Did Not See Each Other

The National Transportation Safety Board released its report this week on the midair collision of a Cessna 172 and a Beech V35B Bonanza near Cincinnati's Blue Ash Airport (ISZ) last May.

ANN reported on the tragic accident last year claiming the lives of David Woeste Jr., 31, and Edward Hitchens, 65, aboard the Cessna and Niels Harpsoe, 64, aboard the Bonanza.

In its report issued this week, the NTSB determined the pilots in both aircraft failed to see each other and keep a safe distance.

Visual meteorological conditions prevailed at the time of the collision, with clear skies and 10 mile visibility. 

The Bonanza departed Blue Ash Airport at 1452 local time, reports the NTSB, and requested flight following through Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport approach control.  The request was denied due to controller workload. Radar showed the Bonanza descending and returning to ISZ.

Eight minutes after the Bonanza departed, radar showed another aircraft, the Cessna, departing ISZ at 1500 local time and climbing. At 1502 radar displayed the returns coming together.

A witness in a nearby office building reported to the NTSB, "When the planes were very close, both rolled inside towards each other and that is when the wings clipped each other." After collision, both aircraft began uncontrolled descents and impacted the ground separately in Sharonville, OH. Both aircraft were destroyed and those onboard both aircraft were immediately killed on impact.

The NTSB report may herald the end of the Federal investigation on the accident, but civil cases are still circling the debated Blue Ash Airport.

A wrongful death lawsuit and a countersuit have been filed involving the estates of the three men involved and the city of Cincinnati, which owns and operates the airport, where both planes took off.

Marcie Woeste, mother of David Woeste Jr., filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Harpsoe's estate citing that his FAA third class medical certificate, dated September 22, 2004, had lapsed at the time of the crash. An identical lawsuit was filed by the Hitchens' estate shortly after.

Harpsoe's widow, Donna, said to the Cincinnati Enquirer she wasn't aware her late husband's medical certification expired before he died, but she's sure the crash did not occur because of a health reason. She said doctors will testify that he was healthy at the time of the flight.

In both suits, the city of Cincinnati is listed as a defendant under the claim that it shares responsibility because of a city municipal code that states that tenant pilots of the airport must have valid paperwork.

The claim of city responsibility further fuels an ongoing controversy in the local media over the busy general aviation airport. The Cincinnati Enquirer pointedly noted "there is no tower at Blue Ash, no set schedule and no one checking licenses before takeoffs and landings at the airport."
 
Such remarks potentially disturb the politically shaky ground on which the airport currently sits. Owned and operated by the city of Cincinnati but located in the city of Blue Ash, the airport has been under threat of closure for years until recent intervention by the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association and local supporters. In a deal struck this year, both cities promised to protect the airport and the city of Cincinnati filed a "pre-application" for nearly $9M in federal grant funds as the first step in that deal.

Though Blue Ash Airport's future stability appears to be on the horizon, resolution of the civil cases does not. Pretrial for the case is set to begin in September 2009 in the Hamilton County Common Pleas courtroom.

FMI: Read The NTSB Probable Cause Report, www.cincinnati-transit.net/blueash.html