Pilot Error Factor In Fatal Crash Equipment Failure, Ice Also Contributed To Accident, Safety Agency Report Says

A South Dakota pilot crashed his small plane and died in a North Idaho clearcut last year after becoming disoriented in a cloud and stressing the aircraft beyond its limits, investigators found.

The fatal crash - 11 miles north of Kellogg - is blamed on equipment failure, ice and pilot error, the National Safety Transportation Board said in a report Thursday.

The wings of the six-seat Piper Cherokee snapped off at high elevation and the plane tumbled down “like a rock” on April 25, 1994, said investigator Kurt Anderson.

Kenneth Albert “Ray” Smith, 59, a mining engineer from Spearfish, S.D., was the only person aboard. He was to refuel at Missoula after departing Kelowna, British Columbia, following a business trip.

“He lost his orientation and what’s up and down and left and right,” Anderson said. “Once he doesn’t know which way is up, he loses control of the aircraft.”

Here’s what happened:

Smith radioed Seattle air traffic controllers that he had lost his attitude indicator, an instrument that looks like an artificial horizon signifying the sky and ground. It tells pilots if they are right-side up. He also reporting light icing.

The plane then was subjected to excessive air speed and/or too much G-force and broke apart in flight. A witness heard the engine rev just before the crash.

The crash site was littered with golf clubs that were embedded upright in the soft ground around the wreckage. The investigator said the golf bag fell out of the fuselage at high elevation and the clubs spilled out like “lawn darts.”

The investigation took so long because of other crashes around the country, said Anderson, who works about one a week.

, DataTimes