Smartwatch leads search and rescue crews to site of fatal plane crash in Montana
Responding crews found all three people on board dead, the Gallatin County Sheriff's Office said in a statement.
They were identified as Rodney Conover, 60, and Madison Conover, 23, of Tennessee; and Kurt Enoch Robey, 55, of Utah, according to the office.
The plane they were in departed from West Yellowstone Airport on Thursday just before midnight, the office said. The U.S. Department of Transportation Aero Division alerted local authorities that the aircraft's location was unknown, it said.
Search and rescue crews gained access to location information on a smartwatch worn by one of the three, leading them to the remote crash site south of West Yellowstone on Friday afternoon, the sheriff's office said.
Two planes used by search and rescue crews made the discovery, but team members on the ground still had the work of getting to the crash site in what the sheriff's office described as "dense timber."
"SAR members located the downed airplane and confirmed all three occupants were deceased," it said. "The decedents were extricated from the plane and transported by helicopter where their remains were turned over to a Gallatin County Sheriff's Office deputy coroner."
The Federal Aviation Administration did not immediately respond to a request for information. A report on the FAA's aviation safety database states the aircraft was a variant of the Piper Cherokee, a small, single-engine plane. It was carrying two flight crew members and one passenger, according to the agency.
The FAA was tasked, alongside the National Transportation Safety Board, with investigating the cause of the crash.
The weather for the area in recent days has included afternoon wind gusts as strong as 20 mph or greater, chilly overnight temperatures and daytime high temperatures mostly in the upper 70s.
Sheriff Dan Springer offered his "deepest condolences" to loved ones of the deceased.
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The Independent
a day ago
- The Independent
Broken altimeter, ignored warnings: Hearings reveal what went wrong in DC crash that killed 67
Over three days of sometimes contentious hearings this week, the National Transportation Safety Board interrogated Federal Aviation Administration and Army officials about a list of things that went wrong and contributed to a Black Hawk helicopter and a passenger jet colliding over Washington, D.C., killing 67 people. The biggest revelations: The helicopter's altimeter gauge was broken, and controllers warned the FAA years earlier about the dangers that helicopters presented. At one point NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy scolded the FAA for not addressing safety concerns. 'Are you kidding me? Sixty-seven people are dead! How do you explain that? Our bureaucratic process?' she said. 'Fix it. Do better.' Victims of the January crash included a group of elite young figure skaters, their parents and coaches and four union steamfitters from the Washington area. Here is a look at the major takeaways from the hearings about the collision, which alarmed travelers before a string of other crashes and close calls this year added to their worries about flying: The helicopter's altimeter was wrong The helicopter was flying at 278 feet (85 meters) — well above the 200-foot (61-meter) ceiling on that route — when it collided with the airliner. But investigators said the pilots might not have realized that because the barometric altimeter they were relying on was reading 80 to 100 feet (24 to 30 meters) lower than the altitude registered by the flight data recorder. The NTSB subsequently found similar discrepancies in the altimeters of three other helicopters from the same unit. An expert with Sikorsky, which makes the Black Hawks, said the one that crashed was an older model that lacked the air data computers that make for more accurate altitude readings in newer versions. Army Chief Warrant Officer Kylene Lewis told the board that an 80- to 100-foot (24- to 30-meter) discrepancy between the different altimeters on a helicopter would not be alarming, because at lower altitudes she would be relying more on the radar altimeter than the barometric altimeter. Plus Army pilots strive to stay within 100 feet (30 meters) of target altitude on flights, so they could still do that even with their altimeters that far off. But Rick Dressler of medevac operator Metro Aviation told the NTSB that imprecision would not fly with his helicopters. When a helicopter route like the one the Black Hawk was flying that night includes an altitude limit, Dressler said, his pilots consider that a hard ceiling. FAA and Army defend actions, shift blame Both tried to deflect responsibility for the crash, but the testimony highlighted plenty of things that might have been done differently. 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Van Vechten said he was never allowed to fly under a landing plane as the Black Hawk did, but only a handful of the hundreds of times he flew that route involved planes landing on that runway. Other pilots in the unit told crash investigators it was routine to be directed to fly under landing planes, and they believed that was safe if they stuck to the approved route. Frank McIntosh, the head of the FAA's air traffic control organization, said he thinks controllers at Reagan 'were really dependent upon the use of visual separation' to keep traffic moving through the busy airspace. The NTSB said controllers repeatedly said they would just 'make it work.' They sometimes used 'squeeze plays' to land planes with minimal separation. On the night of the crash, a controller twice asked the helicopter pilots whether they had the jet in sight, and the pilots said they did and asked for visual separation approval so they could use their own eyes to maintain distance. 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Separately, a different group at the airport discussed moving the helicopter route, but those discussions did not go anywhere. And a manager at a regional radar facility in the area urged the FAA in writing to reduce the number of planes taking off and landing at Reagan because of safety concerns. The NTSB has also said the FAA failed to recognize a troubling history of 85 near misses around Reagan in the three years before the collision, NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said 'every sign was there that there was a safety risk and the tower was telling you that.' But after the accident, the FAA transferred managers out of the airport instead of acknowledging that they had been warned. 'What you did is you transferred people out instead of taking ownership over the fact that everybody in FAA in the tower was saying there was a problem,' Homendy said. 'But you guys are pointing out, 'Welp, our bureaucratic process. Somebody should have brought it up at some other symposium.'' ___
The Guardian
2 days ago
- The Guardian
Night goggles may have hampered army pilots before DC plane crash, experts say
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The Guardian
3 days ago
- The Guardian
Night goggles may have hampered sight of army pilots before DC plane crash, experts say
The pilots of a US army helicopter that collided with a passenger jet over Washington DC in January would have had difficulty spotting the plane while wearing night vision goggles, experts told the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) on Friday. The army goggles would have made it hard to see the plane's colored lights, which might have helped the Black Hawk determine the plane's direction. The goggles also limited the pilots' peripheral vision as they flew near Ronald Reagan Washington national airport that evening. The challenges posed by night-vision goggles were discussed at the NTSB's third and final day of public testimony over the fatal midair crash, which left all 67 people aboard both aircraft dead. Experts said another challenge that evening was distinguishing the plane from lights on the ground while the two aircraft were on a collision course. Also, the helicopter pilots may not have known where to look for a plane that was landing on a secondary runway that most planes didn't use. 'Knowing where to look. That's key,' said Stephen Casner, an expert in human factors who used to work at Nasa. Two previous days of testimony underscored a number of factors that likely contributed to the collision, sparking NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy to urge the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to 'do better' as she pointed to warnings the agency ignored years earlier. Some of the major issues that have emerged so far include the Black Hawk helicopter flying above prescribed levels near Ronald Reagan airport as well as the warnings to FAA officials for years about the hazards related to the heavy chopper traffic there. It's too early for the board to identify what exactly caused the crash. A final report from the board won't come until next year. But it became clear this week how small a margin of error there was for helicopters flying the route the Black Hawk took the night of the nation's deadliest plane crash since November 2001. The January collision was the first in a string of crashes and near misses this year that have alarmed officials and the traveling public, despite statistics that still show flying remains the safest form of transportation. The board focused on air traffic control and heard Thursday that it was common for pilots to ask to use visual separation or relying on their eyesight just as the army Black Hawk's pilots, who were wearing night vision goggles, agreed to do the night of the crash. FAA officials also said controllers relied heavily on pilots using visual separation as a way to manage the complex airspace with so many helicopters flying around Washington DC.
