Posted on 01/03/2003 5:45:57 AM PST by Libloather
Plane crashes, killing pilot and 13-year-old; officials say girl's father witnessed crash from nearby aircraft
Fri Jan 3,12:06 AM ET
SHREVEPORT, Louisiana - The crash of a small plane that killed a man and a 13-year-old girl was witnessed by the girl's father, who was flying nearby in a second aircraft, authorities said.
The single-engine plane went down about 2 p.m. Thursday, about four miles (6 kilometers) north of Shreveport's Downtown Airport, authorities said.
The father, William Ledger, made an emergency landing after seeing the crash, said spokeswoman Cindy Chadwick, of the Caddo Parish Sheriff's Office.
Officials said pilot John Jordan, 48, of Bossier City, was found dead at the scene. Passenger Erika Ledger, of St. Amant, was pronounced dead at LSU Hospital in Shreveport.
"Erika was up here visiting her dad and he said she wanted to ride with Mr. Jordan because he had a new plane," Chadwick said.
The girl's father arrived at the crash site about the same time as deputies, officials said.
Other passengers, pilot still in critical condition
It was the screaming that brought mechanics to the Ryan Airfield runway on Wednesday.
The pained, frantic screams of a woman who watched her 14-year-old son, 71-year-old mother and two cousins take off for a sightseeing trip only to fall back to the earth just after takeoff.
"I heard her screaming hysterically," said Gregg Horrell one day after the accident that killed Bryan Antonick, 14, and critically injured his relatives.
"I couldn't make out what she was screaming, but there was a commotion," he said. "I ran down toward the runway and saw the plane laying out there."
Horrell, who owns Ryan Aero Service, and Shane Smith, who owns the nearby Aero-Smith, raced to the wreck and found Bryan's body. They found the badly injured pilot, Leland Oliver, 53, his daughter, Kirsten, 23, and Bryan's grandmother, Claire Shalvoy.
Others stopped Bryan's mother from coming close. They held back his father, sister and uncle, who were waiting with his mother, and called for help.
The mechanics knew immediately that Bryan was gone. They worked on extricating the others, slicing apart the roof and sides to free them.
"That's probably the worst accident I've ever seen," Smith said. "We really thought we had four dead people on our hands."
Bryan's family traveled from Ohio to visit the Olivers and watch Ohio State play Miami in today's Fiesta Bowl. He flew with "Lee" Oliver and other family Tuesday and so enjoyed it he wanted a repeat. Relatives on the ground awaited their turn.
"He was very pleasant, just a really nice young man," said Bill McLearran, Lee Oliver's flight instructor and a family friend who met Bryan for the first time Tuesday.
Family members, through officials, declined to be interviewed.
Shalvoy remained hospitalized in critical condition along with Lee Oliver, a pilot of more than 20 years who runs a sound company called Arizona Cine.
Kirsten Oliver, a University of Arizona nursing student who has flown for years with her father and is working on her own license, was critical but stable.
Authorities still couldn't say what caused the five-seater, twin-engine 1957 Beechcraft to go down, said National Transportation Safety Board air safety investigator Howard Plagens.
Oliver didn't file a flight plan and didn't call to report problems or call for help before going down at 12:12 p.m., Plagens said. It might take up to a year to conclude what caused the crash.
Tucson Airport Authority Police Officer Karyn Antosh said witnesses reported a loud pop that sounded like a backfire just before the crash, but reported nothing else out of the ordinary.
The crash shocked friends and colleagues at Ryan, especially McLearran, who watched Oliver lovingly fix up the plane for nearly two years and obtain his dual-engine pilot certification more than a month ago.
"He was a very safety-conscious pilot and very studious in learning this plane," he said.
He said the crash was during a period of flight that's extra dangerous: when a pilot has minimum altitude and velocity.
"Another second later, he probably would not have had a problem," he said.
Meanwhile, Horrell was quick to point out the true heroes of the day: the people in the plane who struggled to do what they could even in intense pain and faltering consciousness.
He said Kirsten Oliver followed orders to put her arms around his neck, even though he learned later both limbs were broken. And Lee Oliver reached and turned switches off, even though his fingers were broken and he appeared unconscious.
"She was brave enough and strong enough to do whatever it took to get out of there," he said. "And even though Lee was critically injured, he was taking care of that stuff because he was the pilot."
Sounds like one of the engines dropped a valve.
You're talking about cars, right?
Go here
Oliver didn't file a flight plan and didn't call to report problems or call for help before going down at 12:12 p.m., Plagens said. It might take up to a year to conclude what caused the crash.
As if a flight plan would have changed anything, or given them a clue.
Therein lies the issue, right?
These people died from pilot error, the mechanical failures only contributed to the cause.
O.K. .....I get 2,502..
Check my math against yours. Is this right?
Oh well there's the problem. Plane's won't fly without permission from the government you know...
I once saw a plane make a rapid, wingless, vertical descent from out of a low cloud layer -- seems the pilot had done exactly that.
Freedom is dangerous.
No -- stupidity is dangerous.
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