APRIL 15, 2015
The report released Wednesday did not indicate any possible
cause for the April 7 crash or say why the pilot appeared to have aborted the
landing. The last recorded radio transmission from pilot Thomas Hileman to air
traffic control did not indicate any problems or distress aboard the
twin-engine Cessna 414A, built in 1980.
Bloomington was shrouded in dense fog as the plane
approached Central Illinois Regional Airport shortly after midnight. The NTSB
report says there was an overcast ceiling at 200 feet above ground level, with
a half-mile surface visibility.
The plane was returning from Indianapolis, where the
passengers, including two members of the Illinois State University athletics
department, had attended the NCAA men's basketball championship game. Hileman,
51, and all six passengers died on impact, the coroner said.
Aaron Leetch, 37, ISU's deputy director of athletics for
external operations, and Torrey Ward, 36, associate head coach of the Redbirds
men's basketball team, were among the victims. Also killed were Terry Stralow,
64; Woodrow "Jason" Jones, 45; Scott Bittner, 42; and Andrew Butler,
40.
The NTSB typically releases an initial report about a week
after plane crashes, but the full investigation of the Bloomington crash may
take up to 18 months. Hileman had a valid flying certificate and about 12,000
hours of flight experience.
Rob Mark, an Evanston-based commercial pilot and flight
instructor who edits an aviation blog at jetwhine.com, said the plane's
instruments may have malfunctioned or the pilot may have become disoriented.
"What a strange-looking accident," Mark said.
"Everything looked good as they approached the airport, and then they were
doing some strange stuff."
Mark also said investigators will be looking into the
instrument landing system, which connects the airplane with the airport, for
any problems. Hileman was using the system to line up with the runway and land,
the NTSB said. There is no voice recorder on a Cessna 414A.
As another instrument rated pilot I have always feared the
failure of my EFB or electronic flight book at night under IMC (instrument
conditions). Depending on the avionics in the 414 it would be hard to fly a
missed approach with the tower closed and no charts in the dark.. Hand
flying...
The fact that the plane was able to climb suggests both
engines were functioning properly, Mark said. Investigators should be able to
make that determination by reviewing the wreckage, though determining whether
the instruments were working may be a tougher task, he said.
Anthony Brickhouse, associate professor of aerospace and
occupational safety at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach,
Fla., said he would be focused on the plane's multiple course corrections and
the weather — a 200-foot ceiling "is really low" — if he were
investigating the crash.
"That approach is not something you typically would see,"
Brickhouse said. "Investigators also will be looking at the aircraft. Was
there something mechanically wrong? You can be following your instruments to a
T, but if they're giving you bad information or not functioning properly,
that's going to have a negative impact on you."
In the last radio transmission from Hileman, recorded about
five minutes before the crash, he indicated the plane was nearing Runway 20 at
Central Illinois Regional Airport.
The plane was lined up with the runway at 12:04 a.m. and descended
to 1,400 feet about 1.7 nautical miles north of the beginning of the runway,
according to the NTSB. But in the next 34 seconds, the plane climbed 600 feet,
then "began a descending left turn to an easterly course" away from
the airport.
At that location, a typical "missed approach," in
which the pilot abandons a landing because the runway is not visible at low
elevation, would mean heading to the west, not east, to circle back for another
try, Mark said.
The plane descended to 1,500 feet, then climbed again to
2,000 feet while heading east, according to the report. Within the next 38
seconds, the plane went up and down in the air. It went from 1,600 feet to
1,900 feet back to 1,600 feet, the elevation recorded on the final radar return
at 12:06 a.m. about 2 miles east of the airport, near where the crashed plane
was found by emergency personnel about three hours later.
Source: www.chicagotribune.co