UND airplane crash cause report released
Board cited lack of experience and poor weather conditions as factors.
Michael Thomas
Issue date: 2/8/08 Section: News
According to a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) probable cause report published last week, "deteriorating meteorological conditions" and "lack of flying experience" were the cause of a crash that killed UND students Jacob Rueth and Jacob Sundblad on Dec. 1, 2006.
The accident, which occurred just outside of Crookston, Minn., left many UND students in mourning after the two young commercial aviation students lost their lives.
The plane was found in a harvested farm field about one mile southwest of Crookston Municipal Airport after an emergency locater transmitter (ELT) was detected around 1:40 a.m. by the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center; the plane was found around 3 a.m. after a brief ground search.
According to the report, which was released late last week, an eyewitness saw the two pilots pull the aircraft out of the hangar around 6 p.m.
However, the NTSB report stated that there was moderate snowfall, low ceilings and visibility was reduced to one statute mile around the time of the departure and accident.
The report narrative stated that the flight was operating in instrument meteorological conditions without a filed flight plan. In other words, the pilots took off in weather conditions that required them to rely on their instruments to fly.
However, Rueth, who was the pilot in command, had no
documented actual flight experience in instrument conditions and had only gone through 4.6 hours of simulated instrument flight time. Rueth had accumulated 102.5 total hours of flight time, 30 hours of which were in a Cessna 172 airplane, which was the type that they were flying that night.
"It is likely that the non-instrument rated private pilot's decision to take off in deteriorating weather conditions was due to his lack of flying experience," the report said. "Once he took off into the instrument meteorological conditions, he became spatially disoriented and was unable to maintain control of the airplane."
The accident, which occurred just outside of Crookston, Minn., left many UND students in mourning after the two young commercial aviation students lost their lives.
The plane was found in a harvested farm field about one mile southwest of Crookston Municipal Airport after an emergency locater transmitter (ELT) was detected around 1:40 a.m. by the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center; the plane was found around 3 a.m. after a brief ground search.
According to the report, which was released late last week, an eyewitness saw the two pilots pull the aircraft out of the hangar around 6 p.m.
However, the NTSB report stated that there was moderate snowfall, low ceilings and visibility was reduced to one statute mile around the time of the departure and accident.
The report narrative stated that the flight was operating in instrument meteorological conditions without a filed flight plan. In other words, the pilots took off in weather conditions that required them to rely on their instruments to fly.
However, Rueth, who was the pilot in command, had no
documented actual flight experience in instrument conditions and had only gone through 4.6 hours of simulated instrument flight time. Rueth had accumulated 102.5 total hours of flight time, 30 hours of which were in a Cessna 172 airplane, which was the type that they were flying that night.
"It is likely that the non-instrument rated private pilot's decision to take off in deteriorating weather conditions was due to his lack of flying experience," the report said. "Once he took off into the instrument meteorological conditions, he became spatially disoriented and was unable to maintain control of the airplane."
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