Cessna 210 He Was Aboard Went Down Saturday In Indiana

A senior NTSB official was among three people fatally injured then the Cessna 210 they were aboard went down Saturday night in southeastern Indiana, including a senior official with the NTSB.

Paul F. Schuda, the director of the NTSB training center, was aboard the airplane being flown by Dr. Louis R. Cantilena Jr. professor of medicine and pharmacology at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, according to Dr. Richard W. Thomas, the university’s president. The third person aboard the airplane was Cantilena's daughter, Amy.

Both Schuda and Cantilena were members of the Civil Air Patrol. The three were flying from Kansas City, MO to Frederick County, MD when the accident occurred near Oldenburg, IN.

Katheryn’s Report relays information from radio station WSCH which indicates that Cantilena and Schuda had flown to Kansas City to pick up Amy Cantilena from medical school. They had made a refueling stop in Columbus, IN about a half hour before the accident occurred.

The CAP issued the following statement related to the accident:

Two Civil Air Patrol members, one from the National Capital Wing and the other from the national Congressional Squadron, were killed late Saturday when their plane crashed after experiencing engine failure in southern Illinois.

Majs. Louis R. Cantilena, who was flying the private plane, and Paul F. Schuda died after Cantilena’s Cessna crashed in woods about 9 p.m. near Oldenburg, Indiana, about 40 miles northwest of Cincinnati, according to an Associated Press report. Cantilena’s daughter was also killed, as was one of two dogs in the plane, Indiana State Police said.

According to The Associated Press, State Police Sgt. Wheeles said the Cessna had taken off from an airport outside Columbus, IN after a refueling stop.

Schuda was the National Capital Wing’s standardization/evaluation officer and assistant director of operations. He also served as an instructor at CAP’s Col. Roland Butler Powered Flight Academy at Blackstone, Virginia. He previously served as the Congressional Squadron’s chief of staff from 2006-2012. He joined CAP in March 1998, transferring from the Congressional Squadron to the National Capital Wing in July 2012.

Schuda was director of the National Transportation Safety Board Training Center at Ashburn, Virginia. He previously served as deputy director for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Policy and Special Projects staff and as a professor of chemistry at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Cantilena joined CAP in February 1997. He was a professor of medicine in clinical pharmacology and director of clinical pharmacology and medical toxicology at Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland.

He also directed a Phase One Clinical Research Unit funded by the National Institutes of Health and the U.S Army and served as a consultant to the National Institutes of Health and the federal Food and Drug Administration.

(Image provided by the Indiana State Police)

FMI: www.gocivilairpatrol.com, www.ntsb.gov, www.kathrynsreport.com/2017/12/fatal-accident-occurred-december-16.html