Chris Hall was burned in a small plane crash October, 8, 2013. His Beech S35 (N6861) lost power, forcing Hall to land in a field. Erich Schlegel, USA TODAY
Erik Unhjem lost his wife after a Daher Socata TB10 (N5542Z) crashed in a residential neighborhood in Shirley, New York, also killing the pilot. (Photo taken: Auguest 25, 2013)Thomas Frank, USA TODAY
Contributing: Mark Hannan and Allison Wrabel
Interactives and presentation: John Hillkirk, Jerry Mosemak, Kelly Jordan, Mitchell Thorson, Tim Loehrke and Jodi Upton, USA TODAY
Chapter 1
Trapped onboard
4-year-old died while they tried to save him
The fire ignited when the small airplane smashed into a parking lot and empty building in central Anchorage on a failed takeoff. Passersby ran to pull four burning people from the Cessna Skywagon.
But when they tried to rescue 4-year-old Miles Cavner, the airplane cabin was engulfed in fire.
As Stacie Cavner screamed that her son was burning, police officer Will Cameron spotted Miles on the cabin floor. Fire was scorching the boy's body — and keeping Cameron from saving him.
"We tried to go back in for the young boy," Cameron reflected recently on the June 1, 2010, crash, "but at that point it was too much, so we couldn't get to him."
Small-airplane fires have killed at least 600 people since 1993, burning them alive or suffocating them after crashes and hard landings that the passengers and pilots had initially survived, a USA TODAY investigation shows. The victims who died from fatal burns or smoke inhalation often had few if any broken bones or other injuries, according to hundreds of autopsy reports obtained by USA TODAY.
Fires have erupted after incidents as minor as an airplane veering off a runway and into brush or hitting a chain-link fence, government records show. The impact ruptures fuel tanks or fuel lines, or both, causing leaks and airplane-engulfing blazes.
Fires also contributed to the death of at least 308 more people who suffered burns or smoke inhalation as well as traumatic injuries, USA TODAY found. And the fires seriously burned at least 309 people who survived, often with permanent scars after painful surgery.
Fires have been killing and maiming pilots and passengers since the 1920s but, after triggering some attention in the 1980s and early 1990s, have been largely ignored by federal regulators and crash investigators.
In 1990, the Federal Aviation Administration proposed requiring new small airplanes to have equipment and designs that would prevent such fires and save up to 20 lives a year.
But facing opposition from airplane manufacturers, the FAA withdrew its proposal, saying it wasn't worth the extra expense.
The costs, projected at between $556 and $5,710 for each newly made airplane, were deemed too high compared with the dollar value of the lives that would be saved. The FAA, like other agencies proposing new regulations, placed a dollar value on each human life, but selected a value that it acknowledged was low: $1 million.
The FAA would not comment for this story.
The National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates crashes and recommends safety improvements, has criticized the FAA for rejecting the board's fire-prevention recommendations, including a 1980 suggestion to fund the development of fuel systems that resist rupture. The NTSB estimated then that small-airplane fires had killed up to 1,734 people from 1974 through 1977 and that eliminating post-impact fires "could save more than 300 lives a year."
The FAA rejected the 1980 proposal, citing "budget restrictions and other priorities" for research and development.
More recently, the FAA spurned a Canadian safety agency that was pushing for reconsideration of the 1990 safety proposal using up-to-date dollar figures. The Transportation Safety Board of Canada said the FAA had vastly underestimated the value of each human life when it withdrew its 1990 proposal, and that a revised analysis could show the cost benefit of the fire-prevention features.
"The FAA appears not to recognize the risks associated with post-impact fires or the potential to mitigate those risks," the Canadian board wrote last year.
The FAA's reluctance to strengthen fuel systems contrasts with fire-prevention action taken by its sister Department of Transportation agency, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which regulates automobile safety.
NHTSA since 1968 has mandated that cars and trucks leak no more than 1 ounce of fuel per minute after a rear-end crash at 30 mph. NHTSA strengthened the standard in 2004 by requiring the same fuel containment in 50-mph rear-end crashes.
An NHTSA study in June said the new standard reduced post-crash fires by 50% to 60%.
The FAA requires only that small-airplane fuel tanks "retain fuel" and only during landings with retracted or collapsed landing gear. That standard does not address a wide range of collisions and landings that result in fuel leaks, such as wings shearing off.
"The FAA standards are horribly inadequate," said Harry Robertson, who has consulted for the FAA on fire prevention and in the 1960s designed crash-resistant fuel systems for the Army.
Chapter 2
Post-impact fires continue to kill or maim
Yet crash-resistant fuel tanks and fuel lines could save lives
USA TODAY found that post-crash fires have been killing and maiming dozens of people a year for more than two decades. The newspaper obtained thousands of autopsy reports and death certificates of people killed in small airplanes since 1993. Most deaths occurred in private airplanes, which are flown largely by recreational pilots, with 6% involving commercial commuter flights.
Records show 912 deaths in 544 crashes and hard landings that medical examiners and coroners attributed to airplane fires — about 42 a year. That includes 68 children — 27 of them younger than 10.
One-third of the 912 deaths were attributed to both fire and the impact of a crash. Two-thirds — 604 deaths — were attributed exclusively to fire, which suggests those people survived the impact and would be alive if fire had not ignited.
The figures almost certainly understate the fire-related death toll because USA TODAY could not obtain death records in six states, where they are not publicly available, including New York and Alaska, which has more small-airplane deaths than all but three states. In addition, older death records were unavailable in some states and counties, and some jurisdictions did not respond to information requests or refused to release public reports without collecting substantial fees.
The figures also don't include deaths before 1993, including the 1,700-plus that the NTSB said occurred from 1973 through 1977, when small-airplane crashes killed 7,200 people.
Nonetheless, the records obtained by USA TODAY suggest that post-impact fires have killed or contributed to the death of at least 8% of the 11,302 people killed in small-airplane crashes since 1993 and 28% of the 1,117 serious injuries.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada reached a similar conclusion finding that fire caused 6% of the 3,311 small-airplane deaths in that country from 1976 to 2002.
In the past five months alone, small-airplane fires in the U.S. have caused or contributed to at least 26 deaths, the records obtained by USA TODAY show. That's five more people than were killed over multiple years by the defective ignition switch that led to a massive General Motors recall this year.
The recent deaths include:
• Five people who were burned alive and suffocated by smoke after the May 31 crash of a Gulfstream jet carrying Lewis Katz, an owner of The Philadelphia Inquirer and former New Jersey Nets and New Jersey Devils owner. The crash killed seven in total, but no cause of death has been determined for two people, including Katz.
• Four Case Western Reserve University students who suffered burns and trauma on Aug. 25 when their Cessna Skyhawk hit the ground in Ohio and burst into flames. Lake County Coroner Lynn Smith said it was difficult to determine the extent to which burns or impact injuries were lethal.
• A 67-year-old grandmother who was burned to death on Sept. 2 after the Cessna Cardinal in which she was riding hit trees and then the ground in Montana. The fire also severely burned 11-year-old Rachel Lukasik, who was taken to a burn center in Salt Lake City.
Some fire-related deaths are easily avoided, federal reports have said, by installing commercially available fuel systems that resist rupture after impact.
The FAA itself noted in 1978 that the fuel tanks and fuel lines "would undoubtedly result in the saving of lives which otherwise would be lost in post-crash fires." In 1990, the FAA said, "Improved crash resistance is necessary to prevent thermal deaths and injuries in survivable crashes." In 1994, the FAA began requiring crash-resistant fuel systems in some helicopters to reduce fire-related deaths.
When the agency proposed in 1990 to require such fuel systems on small airplanes, it said 14 to 20 lives a year would be saved.
The proposal would have required fuel tanks that are built into airplane wings to have liners that meet U.S. military standards for resisting rupture and retaining fuel when a wing is cracked or sheared off.
It also targeted leaks from fuel lines running underneath wings by requiring designs that would allow no more than 8 ounces to be spilled at various connecting points. Spilled fuel is easily ignited by engine heat or exhaust, sparks and electrical components. If the regulation had been adopted in 1993, it would affect about 40,000 of the 200,000 private airplanes now in use.
While most of the roughly 2,800 post-crash fires since 1993 began after hard landings or crashes, hundreds began after milder impacts, federal records show. Roughly 170 fires erupted after airplanes veered off runways into brush, ditches, fences, barns, parked cars and wildlife. About 150 fires were triggered by landing gear problems that caused airplanes to skid on a runway or to nose over.
"Those kinds of minor impacts will cause rupturing of fuel cells," said retired Army colonel Dennis Shanahan, former commander of the U.S. Army Aeromedical Research Laboratory. "Adding a crash-worthy fuel tank would help immensely."
Fires often build slowly but become deadly because passengers get stuck trying to escape. "When you're in the back seat of a small plane that crashed, they're hard enough to get out of even in perfect conditions," said Tom Van DeBerg, chief forensic investigator in Greene County, Mo.
Chapter 3
Estimating the value of a human life
At $9.1 million per life, the benefits outweigh the cost
The FAA initially projected that the value of the lives saved would easily outweigh the cost of the requirement, though it acknowledged "a degree of uncertainty" about its projections. Its cost-benefit analysis was based on three estimates:
• How much the new fuel systems would cost
• How many lives they would save
• How much each life was worth
Critics, including airplane manufacturers and Australia's aviation authority, attacked the FAA's projections of costs and effectiveness.
But they accepted the FAA's third assumption, which said each life saved was worth $1 million, a lower value than other government agencies used at the time. The Environmental Protection Agency, for example, placed a $3.3 million value on each life in 1988 when it proposed new ozone protections, according to the EPA.
The $1 million figure was crucial because the less money each life was worth, the easier it was for companies and critics to show that costs would exceed the benefits. The FAA noted in its proposal that "if the value of life were $2 million rather than $1 million, the benefit-to-cost ratio would be twice as great."
Federal departments and agencies were required under a 1981 executive order to propose major regulations only when "the potential benefits to society for the regulation outweigh the potential costs to society."
Benefits were calculated by quantifying items such as health and safety improvements that would result from a regulatory change and placing a dollar value on the improvements. To put a value on preventing a death, agencies used studies that analyzed how much individuals would be willing to pay for small reductions in their chances of dying from a particular hazard.
Federal departments and agencies were free to choose those values on their own. The FAA's $1 million figure was "the minimum statistical value used in government regulatory analysis," the agency acknowledged in its 1990 proposal.
The Australian Civil Aviation Authority, responding to the FAA proposal, did its own calculation of the cost of the fuel systems and said it would be three to five times as much as the benefit.
More than nine years later, after an unusually long period to act on a proposed regulation, the FAA reversed itself, saying it agreed with critics and withdrew the measure.
"The costs of the proposed change are not justified by the potential benefits," the FAA wrote on Dec. 30, 1999, with no further explanation. The FAA said it had done an "extensive economic evaluation," which is not in the public record for its proposal. FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said she could not find any evaluation.
After revising its cost and benefit assumptions, the FAA reacted differently in 2006 when the Transportation Safety Board of Canada challenged the agency's value of a human life. Noting that the FAA had used a low value in 1990 and that values had increased substantially, the board said that "benefits may be greater and the costs proportionately lower" under a revised cost-benefit analysis.
The FAA declined to do a new cost-benefit analysis, and declined again in 2012 and in 2013, calling the matter closed, according to records of the Canadian board.
But by 2013, the Department of Transportation, which oversees the FAA, had raised its value of a human life to $9.1 million. If the $9.1 million value had been applied to the Australian analysis done in 1990, the benefits would have vastly exceeded the cost.
The FAA's refusal surprised Canadian transportation economist Robin Lindsey, who studied the matter for Canada's safety board.
"It doesn't take a huge effort to do a cost-benefit analysis," Lindsey said in an interview. "You're getting dozens of people killed per year and some fraction of them could be saved if you had a higher (fire-safety) standard."
Chapter 4
A horrible way to die
"The right wing was full of fuel, it was a giant fireball"
Fire deaths can be excruciating — much more painful than trauma-related airplane deaths, which are usually instantaneous.
"When you are being burned, it stimulates your pain fibers as maximally as they can be stimulated. We don't know of anything that stimulates them more," said David Ahrenholz, a burn doctor in Minnesota and president of the American Burn Association.
The heat from a 1,500-degree Fahrenheit fire forces fluid out of a blood vessels and into the tissues, causing massive bodily swelling, low blood pressure and eventually organ failure.
"It wouldn't kill you straightaway. You could survive maybe 24 hours," said Stephen Milner, director of the Johns Hopkins Burn Center in Baltimore.
Jane Unhjem lived for about seven hours with severe burns after the Socata airplane she, her husband and a pilot were in clipped some trees just after takeoff and landed hard in a suburban residential street on Long Island, N.Y.
Erik Unhjem, Jane's husband, heard two explosions as the airplane hit the street and a Dumpster, sending fuel spraying from the wings and igniting him, his wife and pilot David McElroy.
Running out of his house on Aug. 19, 2012, Chris Melendez saw the Unhjems standing in the street burning, with flames shooting 30 feet up from the Socata. "All their clothes were melted to their body," Melendez said.
Melendez and a neighbor tried in vain to contain the blaze with garden hoses and to rescue McElroy, who was still in the airplane. "The fire melted metal. It was over 2,000 degrees, easily," Melendez said.
Both McElroy and Jane Unhjem died of trauma and burns, according to crash records and Erik Unhjem. Fire destroyed the airplane.
Although the fire was intense enough to burn Erik Unhjem over 60% of his body, the crash was mild enough to leave him otherwise unscathed. "I had no scratches, I didn't have any sprains, I didn't have any breaks. I had no internal injuries," Unhjem recalled.
Fire-related inhalation deaths are generally quicker than heat-related deaths, taking a few minutes. Fires soak up enormous amounts of oxygen, leaving little for someone to breathe and causing suffocation. They also emit soot, carbon monoxide and other poisonous gases that can cause asphyxiation.
Yet some people live days and months with burns before dying from an infection that penetrates the bloodstream through damaged skin. Those who survive burns experience excruciating pain.
"It's indescribable," said Chris Hall of Coleman, Texas, who was burned on his head, face, hands and arms last year after his Beechcraft Bonanza exploded during an emergency landing in Brownwood, Texas. "I had a morphine pump, but you can't take enough painkiller."
After his airplane lost power about 800 feet in the air, Hall was forced to land in a field of small mesquite trees and cactus, traveling at about 70 mph.
"As soon as I hit the trees, the airplane exploded. It was bang, boom, instantly. The right wing was full of fuel, it was a giant fireball," Hall said. Smashing a window, Hall crawled out of the airplane. "That's when everything went orange," he said.
Hall was burned over a quarter of his body but said he suffered no other injury.
Airplane fires erupt so suddenly that passengers and pilots sometimes have little chance to escape. Hundreds of NTSB crash reports describe burning airplanes as "a fireball" or as having exploded. NTSB investigation forms include a box labeled "aircraft explosion" for investigators to check.
Hannah Luce was in the back seat of a Cessna 401 with four friends when it was forced to make an emergency landing in a field in eastern Kansas. After a "harsh landing," the Cessna skidded through a field, hit a tree and burst into flames, Luce recalled.
The fire erupted "quicker than lightning, completely unexpected and it headed straight for me," Luce said. She struggled to wedge herself through a door that was ajar, but her shoes melted into the seat and then her legs began burning, filling the cabin with the nauseating stench of burning flesh.
"The smell is worse than the feel," said Luce, who spent months recovering from burns that covered a third of her body.
Many witnesses have described the tragedy of being unable to help rescue people being burned inside an airplane because of the intensity of the flames.
In Anchorage, the 2010 collision that killed 4-year-old Miles Cavner severely burned his mother, father, babysitter and brother, according to court records.
Two-year-old Hudson Cavner was burned so badly on his leg, back and head that he had three toes amputated, lost his right ear and has permanent hair loss, according to court records. His mother had both legs amputated below the knee. Babysitter Rachel Zientek had toes amputated.
Mike McCabe, who works at a car dealership near the crash site, ran to the scene with a fire extinguisher and helped people escape until flames were shooting out of the airplane windows.
"You just couldn't get close enough," McCabe said. "It was too hot."
Story, Photos, Video: http://www.usatoday.com
NTSB Identification: ERA12FA514
14 CFR Part 91: General Aviation
Accident occurred Sunday, August 19, 2012 in Shirley, NY
Probable Cause Approval Date: 08/13/2013
Aircraft: SOCATA TB 10, registration: N5542Z
Injuries: 2 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.
The accident flight was a pre-purchase demonstration of the accident airplane. The buyer intended to examine and photograph the maintenance records then fly the airplane around the airport traffic pattern with the owner. However, the owner insisted that they fly the airplane before reviewing the maintenance records. Upon starting the airplane, the owner announced that he had just been informed by the mechanic of the airplane’s inoperative tachometer but continued to taxi to the runway.
Witnesses who observed the airplane’s departure described the takeoff roll as “slow” and “anemic” and stated that the airplane used almost the entire length of the runway to become airborne. The airplane climbed slowly to treetop height in a nose-high attitude and disappeared from view. Moments later, a large smoke plume appeared out of the trees a short distance beyond the airport boundary.
A witness who was standing on his back porch facing northeast, about 1.5 miles from the airport, said the airplane appeared above the trees at the back border of his property, flying directly toward him, and that the sound of the engine was "really loud." The airplane descended over his backyard and below the height of his one-story house in a 30-degree left bank. The airplane then pitched up, climbed over the house, and struck a tree and a construction dumpster in front of the house, where it burst into flames.
The mechanic stated that the whereabouts of the maintenance records were unknown, but he provided a handwritten list of discrepancies he found and work he performed on the accident airplane, including 3 hours of disassembling and cleaning of the carburetor.
Examination of the wreckage revealed that the mixture control cable was disconnected from the carburetor mixture control arm. The cable displayed a light coating of soot, with no damage or fraying of the cable. The cable grip hardware on the mixture control arm was also undamaged, and the cable grip hole was completely open and unobstructed by the cable grip hardware, indicating that the cable had been removed from the arm and had not been reattached before the flight.
Although the owner and mechanic had represented the airplane to the buyer as airworthy with a completed annual inspection, they knew this was not the case, as the tachometer was inoperative; further, during a test flight 3 days before the accident, the engine would not produce full power. The pilot complained of the lack of engine power to the mechanic, but the mechanic stated he did nothing to troubleshoot the discrepancy because of the inoperative tachometer and further stated that he had not “signed off” the annual inspection in the maintenance records.
The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable cause(s) of this accident to be:
The pilot/owner's operation of the airplane with known deficiencies, and the mechanic's failure to reattach the mixture control cable to the mixture control arm following maintenance of the carburetor.
NTSB Identification: CEN14LA002
14 CFR Part 91: General Aviation
Accident occurred Tuesday, October 08, 2013 in Brownwood, TX
Aircraft: BEECH S35, registration: N6861Q
Injuries: 1 Serious.
This is preliminary information, subject to change, and may contain errors. Any errors in this report will be corrected when the final report has been completed. NTSB investigators may not have traveled in support of this investigation and used data provided by various sources to prepare this aircraft accident report.
On October 8, 2013, about 0800 central daylight time, a Beech S35, N6861Q, owned by a private individual and operated by a private pilot impacted trees and terrain 1/2-mile from the approach end of runway 13 at the Brownwood Municipal Airport (BWD), Brownwood, Texas, following a loss of engine power. The private pilot, the sole person on board the airplane, was seriously injured. A post impact fire ensued and the airplane was substantially damaged. The personal flight was being conducted under the provisions of 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 without a flight plan. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed for the flight which had departed Coleman, Texas, and was en route to BWD.
The pilot told a witness that he was on final approach to land when the engine lost power. The pilot attempted to raise the landing gear before the airplane impacted a mesquite tree. The airplane subsequently impacted the ground and slid to a stop. A fire immediately started consuming most of the airplane’s cabin area.
Weather conditions at the time of the accident were wind out of the south at 2 miles per hour, clear skies, and good visibility.
An initial examination of the wreckage showed one blade of the two-bladed propeller bent aft. The other blade was straight and showed little damage.
NTSB Identification: CEN12FA290
14 CFR Part 91: General Aviation
Accident occurred Friday, May 11, 2012 in Chanute, KS
Probable Cause Approval Date: 09/05/2013
Aircraft: CESSNA 401, registration: N9DM
Injuries: 4 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.
While en route to the destination airport, the pilot turned on the cabin heater and, afterward, an unusual smell was detected by the occupants and the ambient air temperature increased. When the pilot turned the heater off, dark smoke entered the cabin and obscured the occupants' vision. The smoke likely interfered with the pilot’s ability to identify a safe landing site. During the subsequent emergency landing attempt to a field, the airplane’s wing contacted the ground and the airplane cartwheeled. Examination of the airplane found several leaks around weld points on the combustion chamber of the heater unit. A review of logbook entries revealed that the heater was documented as inoperative during the most recent annual inspection. Although a work order indicated that maintenance work was completed at a later date, there was no logbook entry that returned the heater to service. There were no entries in the maintenance logbooks that documented any testing of the heater or tracking of the heater's hours of operation. A flight instructor who flew with the pilot previously stated that the pilot used the heater on the accident airplane at least once before the accident flight. The heater’s overheat warning light activated during that flight, and the heater shut down without incident. The flight instructor showed the pilot how to reset the overheat circuit breaker but did not follow up on its status during their instruction. There is no evidence that a mechanic examined the airplane before the accident flight. Regarding the overheat warning light, the airplane flight manual states that the heater “should be thoroughly checked to determine the reason for the malfunction” before the overheat switch is reset. The pilot’s use of the heater on the accident flight suggests that he did not understand its status and risk of its continued use without verifying that it had been thoroughly checked as outlined in the airplane flight manual. A review of applicable airworthiness directives found that, in comparison with similar combustion heater units, there is no calendar time limit that would require periodic inspection of the accident unit. In addition, there is no guidance or instruction to disable the heater such that it could no longer be activated in the airplane if the heater was not airworthy.
The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable cause(s) of this accident to be:
The malfunction of the cabin heater, which resulted in an inflight fire and smoke in the airplane. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s lack of understanding concerning the status of the airplane's heater system following and earlier overheat event and risk of its continued use. Also contributing were the inadequate inspection criteria for the cabin heater.
NTSB Identification: ANC10FA048
14 CFR Part 91: General Aviation
Accident occurred Tuesday, June 01, 2010 in Anchorage, AK
Probable Cause Approval Date: 03/16/2011
Aircraft: CESSNA U206F, registration: N59352
Injuries: 1 Fatal,4 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.
The commercial pilot and four passengers, three of whom were of the pilot's immediate family, were departing in a single-engine airplane on a personal cross-country flight to their lodge. The airplane was loaded with lumber, building materials, groceries, personal luggage, plants, and other items for the lodge. Two witnesses said that just before it took off the airplane was loaded so heavily that its tires looked almost flat.
The pilot reported to the NTSB that shortly after takeoff, at an estimated altitude of 150 feet, he raised the wing flaps from 30 degrees to 20 degrees, and the airplane began to sink. He said he started a slight right turn, but did not recall anything after that. According to multiple witnesses, the airplane was in an exaggerated nose-high, tail-low attitude, and struggling to climb as it approached the accident site. They related that the engine sounded loud, as if operating at full power, before it crashed into a parking lot and an unoccupied building.
A postimpact fire, and cargo in the cabin, slowed rescuers from quickly removing the victims. Four of the occupants survived with serious burns and other injuries; the pilot’s 4-year-old son was killed.
The cargo remaining in the pod and cabin after the fire was weighed, and exemplar weights were used for the burned materials. Using conservative weights, which did not include some burned items like a large container of detergent, the airplane’s total weight was estimated to be at least 658.2 pounds over its allowable gross weight, with a center of gravity significantly beyond the aft-most limit.
Both the aircraft and cargo pod manufacturer state maximum wing flap extension limits for takeoff; the aircraft manufacturer’s pilot operating handbook notes 20 degrees should be the maximum, and the cargo pod manufacturer notes a maximum of 10 degrees. Selecting more flap extension than recommended induces additional aerodynamic drag and adversely affects the airplane’s acceleration and ability to climb.
Federal air regulations require that children 2 years of age or older must be secured with a lap belt. Both of the child passengers, age 2 and 4 years, were not secured with a lap belt and were sitting on the two other passenger’s laps. During the crash sequence, the right front seat passenger was unable to hold onto the 4 year old. The child was pinned by the unsecured cargo and died in the fire.
Postaccident inspections of the airplane disclosed no preaccident mechanical anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
The excessive overloading of the airplane, coupled with the aft center of gravity and the pilot’s excessive use of flaps, placed the airplane well beyond its operating limitations, and made a successful takeoff highly improbable.
The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable cause(s) of this accident to be:
The pilot’s decision to load the airplane well beyond its allowable weight and center of gravity limits, resulting in a loss of control during the initial climb. Contributing to the severity of the injuries was the pilot’s decision to allow two child passengers to sit on other passenger's laps without restraints, and his failure to properly secure the cargo in the cabin. Also contributing was the pilot's excessive extension of the wing flaps.
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