Preliminary Report Cites Grim Findings

That one of the pilots of a CASA-212 Aviocar leapt from the airplane to a young and tragic death is widely known. That the name of the 23-year-old decedent was Charles Hew Crooks and that he was a capable and impassioned aviator is also known. What remains unknown is why Mr. Crooks acted as he did. A sensationalist news-media has rushed to circulate a lurid and libelous gamut of opinions alternately attributing Mr. Crooks’s death to accident, act of God, and even foul-play.  

The release of the NTSB’s preliminary report on the 29 July incident has shed some light on the occurrences leading up to Mr. Crooks’s passing, but cannot speak authoritatively to the young pilot’s state of mind, and the motivations by which he was allegedly compelled to depart the aircraft by his own volition.

According to the 16 August report, Crooks and another pilot—the name of whom remains unreleased at the time of this writing—had been flying skydiving runs out of Raeford West Airport (NR20). The CASA-212 they were crewing, registration N497CA, is registered to Spore LTD LLC of Colorado Springs and operated by Rampart Aviation—a provider of parachute training to U.S. Army airborne units and special operations forces.

Uncertainty exists regarding the CASA’s activities on the day of the incident. Online flight tracking indicates the aircraft had completed several flights from Rocky Mount-Wilson Regional Airport in neighboring Nash County, North Carolina. Crooks—who’d been in the employ of Rampart aviation for only five months—had dispatched as the flight’s Second-In-Command (SIC).

Around 14:00 EDT, with Crooks at the controls, the CASA began an approach to NR20. Prior to touchdown, the approach destabilized, prompting the pilots to abort the procedure and advise Air Traffic Control (ATC) that they were going around. However, before Crooks could establish a positive rate of climb, the CASA forcefully impacted the runway.

Exercising command privilege, the Pilot In Command (PIC) took control of the aircraft from Crooks and instructed the latter to declare an emergency and request a diversion to Raleigh-Durham International Airport (RDU). The decision to divert was predicated in part upon radio reports from ground personnel who informed the PIC that they’d recovered the CASA’s fractured right main landing-gear assembly from NR20’s active runway.

Enroute RDU, Crooks reportedly conducted himself professionally, communicating with ATC and competently performing his SIC duties.

Approximately twenty-minutes into the diversion, Crooks complained of feeling ill and may, according to the PIC, have opened his window and vomited—the CASA-212 is not a pressurized aircraft. Shortly thereafter, Crooks reportedly asserted he needed air, opened the CASA’s rear ramp, made his way aft, and stepped from the aircraft.

Crooks was found deceased approximately thirty-miles south of the Raleigh-Durham International Airport in the city of Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina. His body was recovered from a tree in the backyard of a private residence.

The PIC circled back to search for Crooks—albeit to no avail—then proceeded to RDU where he performed an emergency landing. Contrary to initial reports that he’d been hospitalized for minor injuries, the NTSB report states the PIC was not injured.

The staff of Aero-News extends its condolences to the family and friends of Mr. Charles Crooks.

FMI: www.ntsb.gov