ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - Pilot error led to a fatal September 2011 midair crash involving a boyfriend and girlfriend flying near each other in western Alaska, the National Transportation Safety Board said.
The board determined that pilot Scott Veal was flying alongside Kristen Sprague when he suddenly flew just above her much smaller plane and then clipped its wing on the way back down, the Anchorage Daily News reported (https://is.gd/Te4tTG ) Friday.
In its Feb. 3 decision, the board found that Veal failed “to maintain adequate clearance while performing an unexpected and unannounced abrupt maneuver, resulting in a midair collision between the two airplanes.”
The 24-year-old Veal, of Kenai, died in the fiery crash of his Cessna 208B Caravan. Sprague managed to land her badly damaged Cessna 207 on the tundra north of the village of Nightmute.
Sprague was unhurt. She earlier told an NTSB investigator she thought her plane would crash too.
Both were alone in the planes.
The newspaper said the report doesn’t name either pilot. Alaska State Troopers previously identified them.
Veal was killed after the collision severed the vertical stabilizer and rudder on the Caravan’s tail, sending the plane into a nosedive.
Veal, who worked for Grant Aviation, was returning to his Bethel base. Sprague was flying back to Bethel from Tununak for her employer, Ryan Air.
The pilots agreed by radio to meet in flight and fly back together, investigators said.
Sprague told the NTSB that Veal initially flew along the left side of her plane. After Veal’s sudden maneuver, Sprague told him by radio that she couldn’t see him and “was concerned about where he was,” the report said. Then she saw the wings and cockpit of Veal’s plane descending to her right.
Veal’s left wing clipped her right wing, the report said.
___
Information from: Anchorage (Alaska) Daily News, https://www.adn.com
Please read our comment policy before commenting.