Keynote speaker, Michael Jensen delivers his speech during the 47th Annual YMCA Good Friday Breakfast held at the Long Beach Convention Center on April 3, 2015
LONG BEACH >> For the first time since a fiery 2011 airplane accident that claimed the lives of several prominent Long Beach business leaders, the crash’s sole survivor shared his story in public.
Michael Jensen was the keynote speaker at the YMCA of Greater Long Beach’s 47th annual Good Friday Breakfast. About 900 people — the most ever — attended the event.
Jensen’s message centered around faith, and how his faith and that of the community helped him recover from the brink of death.
“There were five other great guys on that airplane,” he said Friday. “I just still don’t understand it ... We flew off to Utah to discuss business and ski in one of the safest airplanes in the sky, the Beechcraft 200. As we took off from Long Beach Airport over the 405 Freeway, the left engine decided to go. Ken Cruz turned the airplane around quickly and got us almost back to the [runway].”
Jensen said he believes his rescue was miraculous.
“[Firefighters] arrived on the site almost immediately,” he said. “They saw the plane going down as they were going north on Cherry [Avenue] right by the 405 Freeway and the smoke that ensued. They happened to be in their fire gear just finishing a training run. Coincidence? I don’t think so.”
All the signals were green as the fire crew raced to the scene, Jensen said. A gate leading into the airport was already open, an ambulance was on the runway and firefighters sprayed water on the fire rather than potentially suffocating foam.
“I was laying face down in the airplane fuselage, the airplane seat over the top of me, the luggage over the top of me; in a pool of gas and water with glass in my teeth and metal in my teeth,” he said. “The side of my neck was wide open. I was breathing out of the side of my neck, another God thing.”
More than 40 percent of his body was burned. He had a broken back, hips, ankles, a knee and ribs. The seat belt he was wearing caused his body to open up from his pelvis to his sternum. He was in a coma for two months.
After he came out of his coma, doctors, friends and family did not tell him about the crash and that everyone else on the airplane had died because they wanted him to focus on his recovery. One day, his wife finally told him.
Killed in the accident were prominent real estate developers Tom Dean and Jeff Berger; Bruce Krall, who was Dean’s banker; Ken Cruz, the airplane’s pilot and Mark Bixby, a Long Beach bicycle advocate and member of the Bixby family of Long Beach’s founding.
“Needless to say, I cried all day long and I still cry,” Jensen said.
The last known fatal crash at Long Beach Airport occurred on June 15, 1994, when a twin-engine vintage French jet crashed just west of the main runway. The pilot, Steve Sutherland, and a passenger, Chong Tassin, were killed when the 1960s-era Fouga Magister’s landing gear failed and Sutherland attempted to return to the airport.
An investigation into the 2011 crash concluded that water contamination in the airplane’s fuel tanks most likely caused the airplane to lose power during takeoff and bank to the left. Although Cruz completed required training to fly the aircraft, he did not receive additional training that could have helped him maintain control of the airplane.
“Contributing to the accident was the power interruption due to water contamination of the fuel, which was likely not drained from the fuel tanks by the pilot during preflight inspection as required in the [plane’s operating handbook],” according to a report released during the investigation.
Jensen thanked those who helped care for him as he recovered and said he found comfort in a Bible passage, 2 Corinthians 12:10, that reads: “That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
“I was inundated with love and care,” Jensen said. “Everyday I was fed and gradually got up, went to physical therapy, cognitive therapy, just a grind, but I had to keep moving.”
He is still in pain daily, but said his days have settled into a semblance of normalcy.
“I have chosen to live my life for the five men who died by continuing Mark Bixby’s vision,” Jensen said.
He is working with the YMCA to rebuild the Camp Oakes village, which serves as the camp for the YMCA of Greater Long Beach.
Story, photo gallery and video: http://www.presstelegram.com
Surveillance Video Clip: http://dms.ntsb.gov
NTSB’s online investigation file: http://dms.ntsb.gov
NTSB Identification: WPR11FA166
14 CFR Part 91: General Aviation
Accident occurred Wednesday, March 16, 2011 in Long Beach, CA
Probable Cause Approval Date: 08/29/2012
Aircraft: BEECH 200, registration: N849BM
Injuries: 5 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 reported that the airplane’s takeoff ground roll appeared to be normal. Shortly after the airplane lifted off, it stopped climbing and yawed to the left. Several witnesses heard abnormal sounds, which they attributed to propeller blade angle changes. The airplane’s flight path deteriorated to a left skid and its airspeed began to slow. The airplane’s left bank angle increased to between 45 and 90 degrees, and its nose dropped to a nearly vertical attitude. Just before impact, the airplane’s bank angle and pitch began to flatten out. The airplane had turned left about 100 degrees when it impacted the ground about 1,500 feet from the midpoint of the 10,000-foot runway. A fire then erupted, which consumed the fuselage.
Review of a security camera video of the takeoff revealed that the airplane was near the midpoint of the runway, about 140 feet above the ground, and at a groundspeed of about 130 knots when it began to yaw left. The left yaw coincided with the appearance, behind the airplane, of a dark grayish area that appeared to be smoke. A witness, who was an aviation mechanic with extensive experience working on airplanes of the same make and model as the accident airplane, reported hearing two loud “pops” about the time the smoke appeared, which he believed were generated by one of the engines intermittently relighting and extinguishing.
Postaccident examination of the airframe, the engines, and the propellers did not identify any anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. Both engines and propellers sustained nearly symmetrical damage, indicating that the two engines were operating at similar low- to mid-range power settings at impact. The airplane’s fuel system was comprised of two separate fuel systems (one for each engine) that consisted of multiple wing fuel tanks feeding into a nacelle tank and then to the engine. The left and right nacelle tanks were breached during the impact sequence and no fuel was found in either tank. Samples taken from the fuel truck, which supplied the airplane's fuel, tested negative for contamination. However, a fuels research engineer with the United States Air Force Fuels Engineering Research Laboratory stated that water contamination can result from condensation in the air cavity above a partially full fuel tank. Both diurnal temperature variations and the atmospheric pressure variations experienced with normal flight cycles can contribute to this type of condensation. He stated that the simplest preventive action is to drain the airplane’s fuel tank sumps before every flight.
There were six fuel drains on each wing that the Pilot’s Operating Handbook (POH) for the airplane dictated should be drained before every flight. The investigation revealed that the pilot’s previous employer, where he had acquired most of his King Air 200 flight experience, did not have its pilots drain the fuel tank sumps before every flight. Instead, maintenance personnel drained the sumps at some unknown interval. No witnesses were identified who observed the pilot conduct the preflight inspection of the airplane before the accident flight, and it could not be determined whether the pilot had drained the airplane’s fuel tank sumps. He had been the only pilot of the airplane for its previous 40 flights. Because the airplane was not on a Part 135 certificate or a continuous maintenance program, it is unlikely that a mechanic was routinely draining the airplane's fuel sumps.
The witness observations, video evidence, and the postaccident examination indicated that the left engine experienced a momentary power interruption during the takeoff initial climb, which was consistent with a power interruption resulting from water contamination of the left engine's fuel supply. It is likely that, during the takeoff rotation and initial climb, water present in the bottom of the left nacelle tank was drawn into the left engine. When the water flowed through the engine's fuel nozzles into the burner can, it momentarily extinguished the engine’s fire. The engine then stopped producing power, and its propeller changed pitch, resulting in the propeller noises heard by witnesses. Subsequently, a mixture of water and fuel reached the nozzles and the engine intermittently relighted and extinguished, which produced the grayish smoke observed in the video and the “pop” noises heard by the mechanic witness. Finally, uncontaminated fuel flow was reestablished, and the engine resumed normal operation.
About 5 months before the accident, the pilot successfully completed a 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 135 pilot-in-command check flight in a King Air 90. However, no documentation was found indicating that he had ever received training in a full-motion King Air simulator. Although simulator training was not required, if the pilot had received this type of training, it is likely that he would have been better prepared to maintain directional control in response to the left yaw from asymmetrical power. Given that the airplane’s airspeed was more than 40 knots above the minimum control speed of 86 knots when the left yaw began, the pilot should have been able to maintain directional control during the momentary power interruption.
Although the airplane’s estimated weight at the time of the accident was about 650 pounds over the maximum allowable gross takeoff weight of 12,500 pounds, the investigation determined that the additional weight would not have precluded the pilot from maintaining directional control of the airplane.
The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable cause(s) of this accident as follows:
The pilot’s failure to maintain directional control of the airplane during a momentary interruption of power from the left engine during the initial takeoff climb. Contributing to the accident was the power interruption due to water contamination of the fuel, which was likely not drained from the fuel tanks by the pilot during preflight inspection as required in the POH.
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