Weather Likely Cause of Deadly Plane Crash

A plane crash in the Alaskan wilderness that killed two Simpsonville residents and their pilot last month was likely caused by foul weather, according to a preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board.

The June 28 crash in Broad Pass in the Alaska Range killed pilot Dale Hemman, 61, of Steilacoom, Wash., and passengers John Ellenberg, 74, and his fiancee Laurie Buckner, 52, both of Simpsonville.

The NTSB said wreckage of Hemman's twin-engine Beech Baron 95-B55 aircraft, equipped with two 300-horsepower engines, was spread over 726 feet of brush and tundra, indicating a high-speed crash, the Associated Press reported.

Five video cameras mounted on the airplane's exterior were recovered and sent to the NTSB vehicle recorder laboratory in Washington, DC, for review. A final crash investigation report could take nine months or longer, according to the AP report.

Hemman was leading a group of planes on a flight-seeing trip and had set out beforehand to check weather before the planes left Fairbanks enroute to Homer in south central Alaska some 330 miles away.

Weather conditions requiring instrument flight rules were reported in the mountain passes Hemman planned to use to cross the mountains of the Alaska Range.

The other 18 airplanes were divided into two fast and slow-flying groups and each had its own leader, AP reported.

The fast group leader told investigators that Hemman left at about 10 a.m., 10 minutes before the fast airplanes, to check weather through Windy Pass and Broad Pass and to make arrangements in Homer, according to the AP.

As the fast group approached Windy Pass, the leader said, weather started to deteriorate with low clouds, haze and restricted visibility. There also was a radio broadcast from another pilot warning that Windy Pass was not open because of bad weather. The leader and his group landed at Healy River Airport on the north side of the Alaska Range about 80 miles south of Fairbanks, AP reported.

After learning that the fast group hand landed, the leader of the slow airplanes also led his group to Healy. He waited about an hour, took off by himself to check conditions and turned back from thick clouds in Broad Pass.

The other pilots reported Hemman missing. A community fire crew later spotted the flaming wreckage in the bush near the wilderness Parks Highway.