Sunday, December 23, 2012

Cessna 150H, N7005S: Bizarre Christmas Eve plane crash remembered

 MIRAMAR BEACH — The fog rolled in quickly on that long-ago Christmas Eve, and by 1 p.m., it was so thick that people on the top floors of Hidden Dunes Resort couldn’t see the ground.

It also obscured the high rise from pilot Timothy Warren Butler, who was hurrying home for Christmas in his single-engine Cessna.

About 1:30 p.m. Dec. 24, 1987, Butler flew into the 19th floor of Hidden Dunes on U.S. Highway 98. The landing gear lodged in the window of a corner unit, keeping the plane from crashing to the ground.

“That fog just came in so damn fast,” Butler told reporters nearly a month after the crash. “It was clear — and then there was fog.”

Butler was critically injured. His passenger, 31-year-old Deanna Atkins, died at the scene, according to news reports.

Both lived in the Milton area, where Butler is believed to still be living. He could not be reached for comment.

News accounts of the crash in the days and weeks that followed were plentiful.

Then-Walton County Sheriff’s Lt. Bill Fowler told reporters that when he first drove up to the building, the fog was so thick he couldn’t see anything.

“As the fog cleared, I could see what had happened,” he said in 1987 news accounts. “I could see a body hanging out.”

He took the elevator to the 19th floor, broke down the door to Unit 1901 and found a tire from the plane had bounced off and rolled across the empty room.

He leaned out the hole in the wall while a woman he didn’t know held onto his belt to keep him from falling.

“I took hold of the woman’s (Atkins’) arm while the other woman held onto my belt,” Fowler told reporters at the time. “I was thinking, ‘what am I going to do?’ ”

Other rescue workers recalled getting the call about a plane hitting a building. They though it was a hoax until they got to the scene.

While horrified rescue workers watched, Butler undid his seat belt, slipped from the cockpit and became wedged between the building’s wall and the plane’s right wing, news accounts said. He was pulled to safety through an 18th-floor window.

“His time wasn’t up,” Fowler told reporters. “He should have slipped and fallen 19 floors.”

The plane was secured with ropes during the rescue. On Christmas Day, a helicopter was brought in to lower it to the ground.

Butler and Atkins were flying home from Cocoa Beach, where they had visited Atkins’ brother.

Their destination was a small airstrip in Navarre.

Atkins was the mother of a 3-year-old boy.

In an interview nearly a month after the crash, Butler told reporters that they wanted to get home for Christmas.

The weather had been “nearly perfect” on the first part of their trip, he said. But conditions deteriorated as the Cessna neared Destin.

Butler, who was not rated for instrument flying, said he planned to land in Destin. He spoke to someone at the airport who said there already was someone landing and he needed to go around again.

“So I was going around and — bingo — I smacked into that damned condo,” he said.

The National Transportation Safety Board investigated the crash. It found Butler to be at fault for flying in conditions for which he did not have the necessary ratings.

The report called his “in-flight planning/decision” poor, and cited fog as a contributing factor.

The Hidden Dunes tower was largely empty at the time. Unit 1901 belonged to Michael Pizitz of Birmingham, Ala. A decorator had been working in the unit, but was not there when the crash occurred because it was Christmas Eve.

Friends from Destin started calling Pizitz within 30 minutes of the wreck.

“I’ve got bad news and worse news,” one told him. “It crashed into the building. It also crashed into the unit.”

Pizitz requested a copy of the newspaper photo, which shows the plane hanging from the condo. A framed copy hangs in the bedroom where the crash occurred.

He said last week that the crash is still a topic of conversation around Hidden Dunes, even though decades have passed.

“My next door neighbor, who is relatively new, requested a picture of it when I was down there,” said Pizitz, who made her a copy.

“Now the condo is being used by children and grandchildren who weren’t even alive at the time.”

Story and photo:  http://www.nwfdailynews.com

NTSB Identification: MIA88FA071.
The docket is stored on NTSB microfiche number 35640.
Accident occurred Thursday, December 24, 1987 in DESTIN, FL
Probable Cause Approval Date: 02/24/1989
Aircraft: CESSNA 150H, registration: N7005S
Injuries: 1 Fatal,1 Serious.

NTSB investigators either traveled in support of this investigation or conducted a significant amount of investigative work without any travel, and used data obtained from various sources to prepare this aircraft accident report.

 
WITNESSES STATED THAT THEY OBSERVED THE ACFT FLYING IN THE FOG IN A SOUTHEASTERLY DIRECTION AND TURN HARD RIGHT JUST BEFORE IT STRUCK THE 19TH FLOOR OF A CONDOMINIUM. THE FOG ACCORDING TO RESIDENTS OF THE BLDG WAS SO THICK THAT THE GROUND COULD NOT BE SEEN FROM THE TOP FLOORS.

The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable cause(s) of this accident to be:
VFR FLIGHT INTO IMC..CONTINUED..PILOT IN COMMAND

Contributing Factors

IN-FLIGHT PLANNING/DECISION..POOR..PILOT IN COMMAND
 

Contributing Factors

WEATHER CONDITION..FOG

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