Saturday, April 25, 2020

Beechcraft A35 Bonanza, N8743A: Fatal accident occurred April 24, 2020 in Currie, Elko County, Nevada

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. 

The National Transportation Safety Board did not travel to the scene of this accident.

Additional Participating Entity: 
Federal Aviation Administration / Flight Standards District Office; Reno, Nevada


Location: Currie, NV
Accident Number: WPR20LA131
Date & Time: 04/24/2020, 1300 PDT
Registration: N8743A
Aircraft: Beech 35
Injuries: 3 Fatal
Flight Conducted Under: Part 91: General Aviation - Personal 

On April 24, 2020, about 1300 Pacific daylight time, a Beech A35 airplane, N8743A, was destroyed when it was involved in an accident near Currie, Nevada. The private pilot and two passengers were fatally injured. The airplane was operated as a Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 91 personal flight.

Preliminary radar data showed the airplane departed runway 4L at Chandler Municipal Airport (CHD), Chandler, Arizona, about 0933 MST. After departure, the airplane flew west bound briefly before turning northwest where it continued to track for the remaining portion of the flight captured by surveillance data. The direction was consistent with a direct heading to the planned destination, as well as the reported accident site. The last track data on the accident flight was about 200 miles southeast of the accident site and showed the airplane at 8,125 ft mean sea level, and about 137 knots.

The airplane was subject of an ALNOT. The airplane wreckage was located early the following day. The airplane struck terrain and came to rest in a mountain valley. Local law enforcement responded to the accident site and all major components of the airplane necessary for flight were located at the accident site. There was no post impact fire.

The airplane was recovered to a secure location for future examination.

Aircraft and Owner/Operator Information

Aircraft Make: Beech
Registration: N8743A
Model/Series: 35 A35
Aircraft Category: Airplane
Amateur Built: No
Operator: On file
Operating Certificate(s) Held: None

Meteorological Information and Flight Plan

Conditions at Accident Site:
Condition of Light: Day
Observation Facility, Elevation: KEKO, 5030 ft msl
Observation Time: 1356 PDT
Distance from Accident Site: 65 Nautical Miles
Temperature/Dew Point: 18°C / -2°C
Lowest Cloud Condition:
Wind Speed/Gusts, Direction: 11 knots / 19 knots, 280°
Lowest Ceiling: Broken / 10000 ft agl
Visibility:  10 Miles
Altimeter Setting: 30.2 inches Hg
Type of Flight Plan Filed: None
Departure Point: Chandler, AZ (CHD)
Destination: Twin Falls, ID (TWF)

Wreckage and Impact Information

Crew Injuries: 1 Fatal
Aircraft Damage: Destroyed
Passenger Injuries: 2 Fatal
Aircraft Fire: Unknown
Ground Injuries: N/A
Aircraft Explosion: None 
Total Injuries: 3 Fatal
Latitude, Longitude: 40.533889, -114.413889 (est)

Those who may have information that might be relevant to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation may contact them by email witness@ntsb.gov, and any friends and family who want to contact investigators about the accident should email assistance@ntsb.gov. You can also call the NTSB Response Operations Center at 844-373-9922 or 202-314-6290.

Tom and Daniel Kvanvig

Tom and Stacie Kvanvig 

Chief Deputy Coroner Nick Czegledi identified the victims as 48-year-old Thomas Kvanvig, 49-year-old Stacie Kvanvig and 8-year-old Daniel Kvanvig.

Officials say three people killed in a plane crash Friday in Nevada are from the valley.

FOX 10 is learning more about a father, mother and their young son as close friends remember them Sunday night.

Two sisters, Piper, 16 and Macyn, 20, lost their little brother and their parents in the tragic crash.

Loved ones say this family of five shared a beautiful life.

They are identified as 48-year-old Thomas Kvanvig, 49-year-old Stacie Kvanvig and 8-year-old Daniel Kvanvig.

Jason Siemer and Gregg Fuller met Tom Kvanvig back in 1989. They attended the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, New York.

Since then, a brotherhood lasted for decades.

“He really lived life with gusto," Siemer said of Tom. "He never lost his cool, he was calm and collected all the time and he just had a real propensity for going after things that he wanted.”

Fuller remembered Stacie fondly, too.

“Stacie was another super human being as well," he said. "Together they were quite the team.”

High school sweethearts in Idaho, Tom and Stacie got married and had three kids together.

Tom worked for Intel in Chandler and Stacie was a realtor for Keller Williams.

Siemer says it was “sweet to see them get married and have such a beautiful family together.”

On Friday morning, Tom, Stacie and their eight-year-old son flew their plane from Chandler airport headed to Twin Falls, Idaho to visit family.

Authorities say the plane tried to land for unknown reasons and crashed in Nevada near the Utah border.

“I saw that his aircraft was flight planned to do an intermediate fuel stop on his way up to Twin Falls to visit family and it was supposed to land in Colorado City, Arizona," Fuller explained.

The bodies of the Kvanvig family were recovered Saturday.

Friends of the family are devastated, saying Tom loved the outdoors and Stacie just hosted a virtual cocktail hour on Zoom. But most of all, they adored their kids.

“I’m still doing a little bit of research on my own to put some closure to this for my own self and I hope to reach out to his two daughters and help them in any way we can," Fuller said.

If you would like to donate to the family, visit their GoFundMe page.

https://www.fox10phoenix.com

Stacie Kvanvig

Thomas Kvanvig

ELKO – Three people were killed Friday night when the small plane they were traveling in crashed in Goshute Valley.

The Elko County Sheriff’s Office received a call from the Air Force about a possible plane down, according to chief deputy coroner Nick Czegledi. A REACH aircraft was sent out and spotted the wreckage within 100 feet of the coordinates provided by the Air Force.

A mission to recover the bodies was launched around 12:30 Saturday morning.

Czegledi said the occupants were Thomas A. Kvanvig, 48, of Chandler, Arizona; Stacie M. Kvanvig, 49; and Daniel Kvanvig, 8.

A posting on LinkedIn.com lists Thomas Kvanvig as an engineer with Intel Corp.

It appeared their Beechcraft A35 Bonanza was trying to land for unknown reasons and came down hard, nose down, Czegledi said.

The wreckage was about 20-25 miles from the Utah border.

Czegledi said the bodies were recovered. 

The Elko County Sheriff’s Office is cooperating with the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board on the investigation.

https://magicvalley.com


On April 24th 2020, Tom, Stacie and Daniel(8) Kvanvig passed away in a plane crash located in Nevada. Piper(16) and Macyn(20), the daughters of Tom and Stacie, were fortunately not on the plane.


Thomas A. Kvanvig

19 comments:

  1. News story says crash was Friday night, but GMT of 20:00:00Z is 1 PM Arizona time, so it was daylight conditions. Something more than just loss of power must have occurred, because his Bonanza piloting skills were more than sufficient for emergency landing on marginal tracks (see link below).

    https://youtu.be/R3cR9YayOH8

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    1. @Jim I noticed that as well, I've been waiting to see the prelim on this one.

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    2. Lots of Military Operation Areas nearby, so the AF radars would be watching the Bo as it transited toward Twin Falls. With routine training flights in the area, AF may have flown one over for a visual to confirm the location after it went off radar.

      Kinda surprising that a track & observation-based preliminary NTSB report is not out after 25 days. Maybe they are doing the engine and accessories and instrument evals now instead of later.

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  2. Preliminary report came out today. No info related to the final 200 miles of the flight other than that there was no fire at the crash site.

    No confirmation in the report of an intermediate fuel stop landing in Colorado City, Arizona that was mentioned as flight planned in the The Fox10 story. Could it be a simple case of fuel exhaustion? Exhaust leak/CO incapacitation?

    https://app.ntsb.gov/pdfgenerator/ReportGeneratorFile.ashx?EventID=20200425X44436&AKey=1&RType=Prelim&IType=LA

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    1. NTSB report says no flight plan. The individual quoted in the Fox10 report is misinterpreting the FlightAware Position Only/No Flight Plan "last seen near Colorado City, AZ" data. If there was a flight plan, the FlightAware track would show Twin Falls as the end point.

      https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N8743A

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  3. I thought this was fuel exhaustion or mismanagement from the beginning...My guess is they had been airborne well over three hours at the time of impact, probably close to 3:30..ABS says something like 90 percent of all Bonanza engine failures are a fuel issue...tragic either way..

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    1. The fuel thing is a true statement but....most GA airplanes have roughly 4-4.5 hours of fuel. I still think something else is at play here. I don't think this aircraft was subject of the control cable issue and AD but if so, that could certainly have been an issue. Otherwise, I am keenly interested to know the findings being a Bo pilot, CFII and BPPP instructor and active with the ABS. Phil

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    2. He owned the Bo >10 years and must have flown to Twin Falls on those family visits many times. Fuel quantity required and appropriate cruise speed/power settings would be well understood. Fuel exhaustion seems unlikely.

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  4. Foreflight is showing Straight line Chandler to KTWF at 4:18 with a 5kt headwind..That’s for my P Model..It can’t be flown direct due to Grand Canyon restrictions..So add a few more minutes..The flight crossed the Canyon at 8500ft...Thats the first red flag in my opinion. Lots of questions here..

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    1. Good point on the canyon restrictions, but the altitude he crossed at is not in the FlightAware data. Although FlightAware shows his canyon crossing "angling thru" the area of the Tuckup Corridor, that crossing occurs during a long gap in data that Flightaware extrapolated as straight lines between endpoints of the gap.

      The data gap in the FlightAware flight track log is from latitude 35.7218 to 36.4249, which is well outside the 36.12 to 36.25 endpoints of the Tuckup Corridor. Flightaware's data gap means that you can't tell whether he met the required 11,500 foot Northbound transit altitude in the corridor.

      All we can say about his canyon crossing from what Flightaware shows is that it is reasonable to expect that he was navigating to cross via the Tuckup corridor.

      Tuckup Corridor Map:
      http://vfrmap.com/?type=vfrc&lat=36.310&lon=-112.800&zoom=11
      FlightAware:
      https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N8743A

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    2. Very good analysis indeed...I really hope we find out what happened here...This accident really bothers me for some reason..I sincerely hope it was just bad luck..Terrible tragedy and a beautiful family...

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    3. Hope we do learn what happened. Photos of the Goshute Valley surface makes you wonder what the best emergency landing technique would be.

      It might be possible to pick out a two-track trail and do a wheel landing, but finding a paved road could be out of reach if you were flying at 8500 feet, since there would be only about 3000' AGL to work with.

      Photo at two track on south end of Goshute valley:
      https://www.summitpost.org/dolly-varden-mtns/575856/c-575847

      Same two track, using google maps, in street view:
      https://www.google.com/maps/@40.3357098,-114.289627,3a,75y,313.65h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sTPGa0sJNc6M3LPZaNLqbng!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo2.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DTPGa0sJNc6M3LPZaNLqbng%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D321.37207%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i3328!8i1664

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  5. It's not clear from the NTSB preliminary report, does anyone know if there will be further investigation into the cause of this crash?

    Detailed satellite imagery around the crash site shows many nearby open meadow areas. The preliminary report states there was no fire, and aside from a catastrophic mechanical failure, if the pilot was in control/alert, an engine out situation into one of those open fields would seem likely survivable.

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  6. Way to many alarms going off here - fuel - air space violations - if you want to be a cowboy - buy a GSXR 1000 - that way only you get splattered and you don’t leave misery behind for the survivors and terror for those with you.

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  7. I owned an A35 for several years, it had the 10 gallon aux tank along with 40 in the mains of which 35 was useable. This trip in length and speed led to fuel exhaustion, simply put. Landing with an engine out off airport leads to a crash. Sometimes the crash is survivable, in this case sadly it was not.
    Lesson: never ever exceed your fuel limitations, IFR or VFR. Never assume you have enough fuel, plan your flight with healthy reserves.

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  8. Replies
    1. Flying a strait line over a couple restricted spaces and fuel exhaustion sounds like he was incapacitated. Maybe co2?

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    2. WBW co2 is carbon dioxide !! like in soda pop ...

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