Sylwia Nasiadko
A Cessna's engine appeared to stall as the plane approached the shoreline, witnesses said, and the aircraft dived vertically
into the sand near West 19th Street.
Posted on 05/21/2005 2:42:09 PM PDT by Pharmboy
NEW YORK (AP) - A small plane on a sightseeing tour over Coney Island went into a tailspin and slammed into the famous beach Sunday, killing all four people aboard but injuring none of the stunned sunbathers who witnessed the crash. The victims died at the scene of the afternoon crash of the Cessna 172S, Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Holly Baker said. There were relatively few people on the beach at the time, and no one on the ground was hurt.
Eyewitnesses said the plane was circling above the Brooklyn beach when its engine suddenly stalled, and the aircraft quickly plunged into the beach. The pilot tried desperately to right the four-year-old plane after it went into a tailspin, said Herbert Lecler, 51, who was fishing on the beach.
"He couldn't, and he bounced on that beach," Lecler said.
Joshua McCabe, a registered nurse visiting from San Diego, was eating inside Nathan's Famous hot dog restaurant when he heard the crash. McCabe and another witness rushed to the scene, where they found the pilot already dead and a female passenger barely alive.
Within seconds, he said, "she wasn't breathing and then she lost her pulse."
Dick Zigun, a longtime Coney Island resident who was at the crash site, said it looked like the plane had come down nose-first. Several sunbathers were on the beach at the time, although the crowd was sparse, he said.
"The wings are broken off, and the cockpit glass was smashed up," Zigun said. "It didn't look like anyone could survive that."
Police and fire officials moved quickly to close off the beach after the crash. Dozens of people were gathered along the boardwalk staring out at the wreckage.
The crash occurred within sight of the Wonder Wheel attraction at the world-renowned beach, home to the Cyclone rollercoaster and the Astroland amusement park. The plane hit the beach near KeySpan Park, a minor league baseball stadium.
The pilot was a New York City resident, while the other three victims were visiting from the South and were on a sightseeing tour for aspiring pilots, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at a news conference.
"Obviously something went tragically wrong, and four people are dead," Bloomberg said. "We should be glad there are not more."
None of the victims were immediately identified, pending notification of their families.
The cause of the crash was unknown, and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate. The plane was registered to RJ Ventures LLC of Paramus, N.J.
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Associated Press Writer Larry McShane contributed to this story.
Their faith will certainly help them through this. Thank you for filling in the details as tragic as they are. My wife and I are so saddened...we have 3 kids. Bless you all in WVA.
Thank you for your kind thoughts. I was out walking the puppy a while ago and several of my neighbors were still just stunned. I have two boys and can't even imagine that mother watching from the ground helpless. Just a horrible situation.
Nope. That poor Marine didn't die until December.
As to your theory I don't think so. The reason why i am saying that the plane being overweight would crash on either landing or takeoff but not mid flight, Besides as the plane started flying it burned fuel and got lighter.
Well that means you'll hit the deck at about 40 mph..... I think that's gonna leave a mark....then with fuel and engine parts mixing about, hopefully unconciousness occurs when the burns kill the passengers.
The point I was trying to make was that gliding and the "glide" path of a flying machine that is normally "powered" is variable.
I had a friend of mine tell me how he wasn't too worried about crashing a chopper cause they "auto rotated".... uh yeah.. well he had a power plant loss at about 50-60 feet and autorotated down to some compression fractures of his back.
Thank God he wasn't more seriously hurt. No explosion, no fatalaties. I was impressed that the pilot saved their lives, but If they were meant to glide they'd be called "gliders" not "helicoptors" or "airplane".
Do you think the Osprey is a viable option for replacing the transport and delivery vehicle for the Marine Corp?
forgot the /sarcasm /humor marks.....
jeez, everybody is so frickin' sensitive about the Osprey. OK, Sorry for using a bad example and sarcastic data...
If Bloomberg kept his mouth shut, no one would know for sure he is an idiot.
osprey has zero to do with this story
You can get airborne over T.O. weight limits, you will need more runway to do it though, and it will raise your stall speed too. Also you may not be able to recover from a stall if your center of gravity is too far aft.
4 people is not something you do in a 172 unless you check your weight and balance quite carefully.
So more weight equals higher stall speed, possibly too far aft center of gravity too may make the aircraft incapable of recovery from a spin. Throw in a turn and bank this raises the stall speed even further assuming your trying to maintain altitude, your already flying slow and low for sightseeing, throw distractions in the cockpit with passengers and radio... This is a ripe situation for stall spin crash.
We should wait until the NTSB investiages. But when youve read so many reports saying "failure to maintain adequate airspseed." You can take an educated guess.
ping
"We should be glad there are not more." ... is one of them.
I didn't mean to be overly severe on Hiz [sic] Honor, but having lived in the NE area (Essex County, NJ) most of my life, I like most of my brethren, are openly critical.
A Yankee birthright? ;)
I apologize, I omitted you both from the post quite unintentionally.
Heading for the "hot joe" and a cigarette now. ;)
I was being sarcastic....... jeez, enough already...bunch of Ospreyphiles.
sorry I offended your Osprey Koran.
Now I get it.... don't poke phun of the Osprey.
I will write that 100 times. I promise to never, ever, ever be off topic or make fun of the Osprey, it's glide slope, it's safety record, it's immense value as a replacement for transport service for the Marines and any and all references to Pandion haliaetus.
I will never note that the Osprey bird and the Osprey aircraft have similar flight characteristics in that the bird converts to a slow level flight, hovers and then plunges into water...... after fish ..... and the aircraft..... never mind.
Idiots!
I was reading a little more about the 1973 Boston crash. They had a jump seat rider and came over the outer marker high and fast. At one point the jump seater was even helping out with the final checklist responses. The plane behind the Delta had made a missed approach and it was a couple of minutes later before the tower even knew there had been a crash. The missed approach aircraft saw absolutely nothing at minimums. Lots of ingredients for a disaster on that one.
I think I'd cr@p my pant just doing a "controlled" stall. I can't imagine trying to master an unexpected stall.
I'd be the one the site states would have an "anxiety attack" at the mention of an unexpected stall.
I agree with with NAH's theory. You would be surprised at what competent pilots can do with overweight aircraft on takeoffs and landings. However, there is very little room for error.
The best example of heavy aircraft getting airborne would be to have watched B52s taking off from the island of Guam in the 60s. Loaded with bombs and fuel they used the entire lenght of the runway to get airborne. At the end of the runway was clift with a dropoff to the ocean below. As the planes became airborne and flew over the clift they would drop from view in the humid tropical air. In a few minutes they would appear again, still flying and climbing for altitude, way off in the distance. Heartstopping, just to watch.
"Besides as the plane started flying it burned fuel and got lighter."
C172s are not known to be fuel guzzlers. The model I was familiar with carried approx 40 gallons. On one trip I made some rough calculations that came to 17 miles per gallon of fuel burned. Keep in mind that was only one instance and the calculations were rough figures. Still, one would be in the air quite awhile to burn just one half of the fuel load.
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