Early Indications Point To Pilot Error, Weather

Saturday marked the one-year anniversary of a Beech King Air crash in Minnesota, one that killed eight people including Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone (D-MN, right), his wife and daughter, as well as three members of his staff and the flight crew. NTSB investigators want to know why the plane, which had been flying at 180 kts., 2000 feet AGL, suddenly slowed to 85 kts, veered to the left and stalled. It happened about two miles south of the Eveleth-Virginia Municipal Airport. The King Air A100 clipped some trees, then slammed into a murky swamp.

The fire, which burned for seven hours, destroyed just about all evidence relating to the disaster.

The NTSB will file its initial report next month. The St. Paul Pioneer Press reports pilot error will probably be a big factor in the report, but that investigators still haven't found a definitive cause. They may never find one.

Wellstone's schedule for Oct. 25, 2002, called a flight from St. Paul to Eveleth, where the Senator and his staff were to attend the funeral of state Rep. Tom Rukavina's father. Wellstone then was to be driven to Duluth for a debate with the three other candidates for his Senate seat. Capt. Richard Conry and co-pilot Michael Guess were supposed to meet them later that evening and fly the senator, his family and aides back to St. Paul.

Ironically, the weather was so bad that the plane almost never left the St. Paul downtown airport. At 7:16 a.m. the day of the fatal flight, Conry got a met briefing from the FSDO in Princeton (MN). The aviation forecast called for moderate icing, low clouds and light precipitation. He also was warned that visibility was so limited he would certainly be IMC most, if not all of the way.

It didn't look good.  Conry's friends and colleagues said he really didn't like to fly in that kind of weather. Conry asked the FSDO specific questions about the icing conditions.  Based on the reply, he asked about flying into Duluth instead of Eveleth. But the FSDO briefer told him conditions weren't much better there.

"You know what? I don't think I'm going to take this flight," Conry told the briefer during that phone call.

But the decision didn't stick. Instead, Conry called back for another briefing and found that conditions had improved -- just a little. "OK, that's what I need," Conry told his briefer. "At least it's above my minimum here." The plane departed St. Paul at 9:37 a.m. and crashed 45 minutes later.

The Pioneer Press reports investigators could find no mechanical faults in what was left of the King Air's wreckage. The gear was down, the flaps extended. There's still the possibility of an electrical glitch, but the long-duration fire at the crash sight ate that up.

While the VOR at Eveleth was slightly out of true, investigators said it was no factor. Although the weather was close to minimums, NTSB personnel flying a simulator found it shouldn't have been anything the crew couldn't handle.

Conry's health apparently wasn't a factor. Pathological exams indicated there was no evidence the 55-year old pilot had suffered a heart attack.

So, the NTSB put Conry's background under the microscope. Their findings were a bit disturbing. Aside from the fact Conry had a prison record (he'd been convicted of mail fraud in a real estate scam), they found he wasn't completely forthcoming about his flying experience.

When he applied for a flying job at Aviation Charter, the company that owned the King Air, Conry said he'd flown 514 hours as a first officer for American Eagle. But when NTSB investigators checked his logbook, they found he'd documented only 20 hours. Conry resigned from American Eagle after only a few months.

Aviation Charter said it never knew about the inflated hours or about Conry's criminal background.

But that wasn't the worst of what was found by NTSB investigators. The Pioneer Press reports:

• On a flight carrying Sen. Wellstone to Rochester (MN) on October 22, Conry reportedly almost crashed because he hit the wrong switch just after take-off. Departing the airport in downtown St. Paul, the NTSB says he tried to activate the yaw damper. Instead, he turned on the autopilot. The plane nosed sharply toward the ground. Conry was heard to say, "What's going on?" It was only after his co-pilot figured out what was up (or coming down) and deactivated the autopilot that the aircraft pulled out of the dive.
• Flying Wellstone and company in IMC a few months earlier, the first officer left the cockpit briefly. When he returned, he found the plane was banking at 45 degrees and descending at 1,000 feet per minute. The co-pilot immediately assumed command and righted the aircraft. When he asked Conry what happened, the pilot said, "I don't know, I was fixating," Conry replied. Because they were in clouds, the passengers never realized anything was wrong.
• Conry was once heard to say he didn't think he was "fast enough" to fly the King Air A100. Conry logged almost 5,000 hours of total flight time, but only 150 were in that type.

A meteorologist researching the accident reported as much as a quarter-inch of ice may have built up on the wings. That's certainly survivable in that type, but does require some special procedures to compensate for the weight and increased drag. The A100's approach speed should have been closer to 130 kts. When the aircraft slowed to 85 kts. and banked, it was well below the situational stall speed, according to the NTSB.

When interviewed about the incident in retrospect, St. Cloud State University aviation professor Jeffrey Johnson told the Pioneer-Press, "The haunting reality is that we may never really ascertain the facts as to why eight people lost their lives."

FMI: www.ntsb.gov