O/T Plane Crashes 5 miles from me.

Posted by bradk on July 31, 2008 at 18:21:48 from (72.15.38.102):

Had some nasty weather this morning.Lot of trees down,power lines snapped,and a small town to the north of me is closed to anyone other than residents.

The big news was the small jet plane crashing just minutes from me.

Here's the story;

Charter jet crashes in Owatonna; 8 dead, 1 unaccounted for
TIM HARLOW and PAUL WALSH, Star Tribune

A small charter jet crashed about 9:30 this morning at Owatonna Degner Regional Airport in southern Minnesota after arriving from the East Coast, killing eight people and leaving one unaccounted for, the Steele County Sheriff's Office said.

One person on board charter flight 81 from Atlantic City, N.J., initially survived and was taken to Owatonna Hospital but later died, Sheriff Gary Ringhofer said this afternoon.

Doug Neville, a spokesman for the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, said authorities have confirmed that there were six passengers and two pilots aboard, and are still trying to confirm if a ninth person was aboard.

"Right now, what we're more concerned about is making sure that we treaty the remains respectfully and making sure that we don't have another victim somewhere that we need to find," Neville said.

The remains have been taken to the Minnesota Regional Medical Examiner's Office in Hastings.

John Lovell, a spokesman for the NTSB, said a 14-member NTSB team had arrived in Owatonna to work with local authorities, the FAA and the FBI.

He said that the jet's flight data recorder and voice box were flown to the NTSB lab for analysis.

The pilots have been identified as Clark Keefer of Bethlehem, Pa., and Dan D'Ambrosio of Hellertown, Pa. The plane, which was chartered by Revel Entertainment, originated in Allentown, Pa., this morning. It stopped in Atlantic City, N.J., before departing for Owatonna.

Atlantic City Mayor Scott Evans told the Associated Press that those on board included two high-ranking executives from Revel Entertainment, which is building a $2 billion hotel-casino project in Atlantic City, and several employees of Tishman Construction. He didn't know their identities, but said Revel CEO Kevin DeSanctis was not on board. Tishman is helping with the Revel project, a company spokesman said.

Revel spokeswoman Lauren Avellino Turton confirmed in a written statement that several of the company's employees were killed aboard a plane that was chartered by Revel Entertainment.

"Revel is mourning the loss of several of its team members," the statement read. "The design team was heading to Minnesota for a glass manufacturing meeting."

Toni Evans, an executive assistant for the SOSH architectural firm in Atlantic City, said at least some of those on board the plane were affiliated with the company, though they were not employees of it.

"They were from a couple of different companies," she said. "We've been asked not to say anything further about it at this point. We don't know who survived and who didn't."

She said the people affiliated with the firm were New Jersey residents.

SOSH specializes in designing casino projects. It is helping design the $2 billion Revel Entertainment casino-hotel project in Atlantic City, and the $333 million Buffalo Creek casino-hotel project in upstate New York for the Seneca Nation, among other projects.

The Raytheon Hawker 800 crashed about 10 a.m. "while on approach," said Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory.

The crash is the deadliest in Minnesota since October 2002, when Paul Wellstone and seven others flying with the Minnesota U.S. senator died after their chartered twin-engine plane crashed in the woods near Eveleth.

Stormy weather was moving through southern Minnesota at the time, with high winds, but it was unknown whether those conditions played a role in the crash.

Cameron Smith, a mechanic/inspector for Rare Aircraft, talked to the pilot just before landing. Smith said the pilot requested fuel, said nothing to suggest any trouble and wanted to know where to park.

Moments later, Smith said, he heard what he initially thought was thunder. He said the crash occurred after the worst of the storm had passed, with the sky clearing amid a light rain.

Soon after, another employee told him the plane had gone off the runway. He and several other employees rushed to the crash in a farm field.

"I was amazed to hear that someone survived," he said. "There was no fuselage. There were just parts."

The passengers were customers of the Viracon glass manufacturing company in Owatonna. A Viracon spokeswoman said seven people were flying into Owatonna for a meeting today at the glass company, along with two pilots.

Don Pyatt, president of Viracon, told the Owatonna People's Press that the customers were from "a couple of different companies" coming to the plant to discuss a project in Las Vegas. All Viracon executives were at the scene of the crash, the spokeswoman said.

The flight-tracking website FlightAware.com showed that the jet, owned by charter firm East Coast Jets Inc. of Allentown, Pa., was due to fly from Atlantic City to Owatonna, arriving at 9:42 a.m. The plane was scheduled to leave Owatonna at 11:40 a.m. for Crossville, Tenn.

Chuck Strong, CEO of East Coast Jets, declined comment. The company website says it "has a flawless safety record" and its "in-house maintenance staff maintains all ... aircraft to the highest aviation standards."

Aviation Research Group, a private firm in Cincinnati with clients throughout the industry, said East Coast Jets operates 11 aircraft and employs 21 pilots.

"They have a good safety history," ARG President Joe Moeggenberg said, based on federal data. "There were no recent incidents."

This model of aircraft "has a very good safety record; been around along time," said Gary Robb, aviation expert and attorney with a Kansas City law firm that represents aviation crash victims.

Investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board are on their way to Owatonna. Identities of the victims have yet to be released. The bodies will be taken to the Twin Cities medical examiners as part of the investigation, the state Department of Public Safety said.

John Billingsly, a retired pilot who worked at the airport for many years and lives in northeast Owatonna, said, "I saw the plane making its final approach, and it appeared nothing was wrong. We'd just had a lot of wind, but it had calmed down a bit and mostly subsided by that time."

Chad Garteski, general manager of Cabela's, said late this morning, "There are definitely search and rescue vehicles in a field west of the airport." He said firetrucks were in a cornfield.

Quinn Johnson, assistant manager at the Happy Chef about 2 miles from the airport, said she was outside the restaurant's back door around 9:40 a.m. when she heard a loud noise coming from the direction of the airport that lasted about 25 seconds.

"It was right when the storm was passing over, and I heard a really loud noise," she said. "I even looked to see if it was a tornado."

The crash came as thunderstorms moved across the region, knocking out power lines, snapping trees and damaging agricultural buildings.

Two other fatal crashes have been reported at the Owatonna airport since 1962, according to the NTSB. In June 2002, a replica biplane hit power lines and crashed, killing one person and seriously injuring another. In June 2004, a Cessna U206F crashed when it collided with a house and the ground during an instrument approach. Four people were killed in the crash.

The state's deadliest aviation crash occurred in December 1993, when 18 died in a Northwest Airlink commuter plane crashed into a mine dump near Hibbing.

Star Tribune staff writers Kristin Tillotson and Joy Powell, staff researchers Sandra Date and Roberta Hovde, and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Replies:

• Re: O/T Plane Crashes 5 miles from me. Billy NY 22:11:32 07/31/08 (0)

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