The Cessna 172N aircraft involved in the deaths of three University of Maine fraternity brothers appears to have been damaged, just prior to the accident, when it collided with a privately-owned pickup truck on a Knox County Regional Airport runway.
That was the preliminary finding in a National Transportation Safety Board report, Nov. 20.
One of the young college students aboard the plane was Brazilian student Marcelo Rugini 24, a friend and co-worker of the family that owns and operates Spear Farm. Rugin originally came to Maine on a farming internship and lived at the farm on Upper East Pond Road for seven years. Rugini was from a farming family in Muliterno, a small town in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.
The crash also killed the Cessna’s pilot, William “B.J.” Hannigan III, 24, of Portland, and David Cheney, 22, of Beverly, Mass. All three were students at the University of Maine, where they were members of the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity. The driver of the pickup truck, Stephen Turner, 62, of Camden was not injured.
The NTSB report said the plane “was substantially damaged when it impacted a non-airport vehicle and then subsequently impacted terrain during takeoff.”
“Visual meteorological conditions prevailed and no flight plan was filed,” the report said. The report called the planned flight a “personal flight” and said the intended destination was Bangor International Airport.
Turner told NTSB investigators that he was driving his pickup truck on the taxiway, following another aircraft out to the strip of tarmac designated as Taxiway Alpha.
“The other airplane continued down Taxiway Delta and [Turner] proceeded with his vehicle to the hold short line of the runway. He announced his intentions on the common traffic advisory frequency using a radio in his vehicle, heard no response nor saw anything on the runway, and he proceeded to cross runway 31.”
According to the report, Turner “subsequently saw something grayish in color, continued to cross the runway, and then got out to inspect what he saw at which time he observed an airplane attempting to climb.”
As Turner watched, the airplane drifted to the left of the runway and made a left turn as if attempting to return to the airport, the report states. “Subsequently, the airplane was then observed in ‘slow flight’ and then it began to ‘spin.”
An eyewitness at the scene told NTSB investigators that the airplane departed “to the west and appeared to be doing a left climbing ‘chandelle’ type maneuver. According to the websites at pilotoutlook.com, this is “a maximum performance climbing turn beginning from approximately straight-and-level flight, and ending at the completion of a precise 180° of turn in a wings-level, nose-high attitude at the minimum controllable airspeed. The maneuver demands that the maximum flight performance of the airplane be obtained; the airplane should gain the most altitude possible for a given degree of bank and power setting without stalling,” the website states.
The NTSB report said the Cessna “also had what appeared to be a high angle of attack. About 200 feet above ground level the navigation identification lights were observed rotating slowly counter clockwise. The airplane then appeared to pitch down and descended behind trees.”
According to the report, the plane appears to have hit the ground “in a nose down attitude, next to a tree, approximately 2200 feet from the initial impact location with the vehicle, and subsequently caught fire.” The right elevator, the flap on the right side of the tail that is part of the plane’s steering system, was found in the vicinity of the initial impact location on the runway.
The report is considered preliminary and is subject to change until a final report is completed, probably within 18 months.
