![]() When they lost sight of the airplane as it descended behind houses, they estimated the altitude as between 150 and 250 ft AGL. They said that at first sight, the airplane was estimated between 300 and 500 ft above ground level (AGL). Another nearby witness saw the lights of the airplane but did not hear anything because they were in a car with the radio on. They described the noise as a loud engine or high RPM engine followed by silence. About 4 nautical miles (nm) from DOYET, the airplane turned right, as if to intercept the inbound course, but descended rapidly in a spiral and impacted terrain on a 340° headingĪ witness inside their residence described hearing an airplane low near their house. Shortly thereafter, ATC attempted to contact the pilot and subsequently issued a low altitude alert, but no reply or acknowledgement was received.Īfter passing DOYET, the airplane turned left about 45°, consistent with a teardrop entry into the procedure turn, before it turned back right, and paralleled the inbound course of the procedure turn. The filed IFR flight plan stipulated a cruise altitude of 9,000 ft mean sea level (MSL), an estimated time enroute of 1 hour and 28 minutes, and 4 hours of fuel on board.Ī review of archived Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) automatic dependent surveillance broadcast (ADS-B) data revealed that the airplane departed 1H2 about 1956 central standard time, climbed to about 7,000 ft MSL, and proceeded on a relatively direct track toward DOYET, the initial approach fix for the RNAV/GPS runway 25.Ī review of commercially available communications data revealed that the last confirmed communication between the accident airplane and air traffic control (ATC) took place when ATC instructed the pilot to cross DOYET at or above 3,000 ft and cleared them for the RNAV runway 25 approach, to which the pilot read back the clearance and altitude restriction. The flight was conducted as an instrument flight rules (IFR) flight from Effingham County Memorial Airport (1H2), Effingham, Illinois, to Findlay Airport (FDY), Findlay, Ohio. The pilot and passenger were fatally injured. Information verified through data from accident investigation authoritiesĪ Piper PA-32-260 Cherokee Six, N3952W, was destroyed when it impacted wooded terrain near Fostoria, Ohio. It was a lot of white caps and it was a white plane,” says another controller.Effingham County Memorial Airport, IL (1H2) It’s like one-percent moon phase, you know? Fifteen foot seas, 40 knot winds … it was pretty bad. “Daylight’s actually gonna help the search a lot because the weather could not have been more uncooperative last night. It was obvious the weather was hindering their efforts. ![]() Ships, planes and helicopters from Detroit and Canada were called in to help with the search. “We had state troopers go around the airport at Ohio State, just in case they went down there somehow under the radar, literally at treetop level or something,” a controller says. “Nope, they were in Cleveland to go to the Cavaliers game,” responds the first controller.ĭespite repeated efforts to contact the plane, controllers still held out hope that it didn’t crash. The other controller then responds, “Ah, you’re kidding me.” As a matter of fact, it’s his birthday,” said one controller to another. On board were the pilot, a Columbus businessman, his wife, two teenage sons, and a neighbor and his 19-year-old daughter. I’m trying to get the Coast Guard first, and then we’re gonna do everything after that.” “How about the police department or anything like that?” “I’m calling the Coast Guard now, see if we can have them fly over.” Within about 10 minutes, controllers scramble to get crews to search Lake Erie for the missing plane: “I’ve tried him four times, five times, hasn’t answered one time … I don’t even see him, I didn’t see him either, he was there, then I haven’t seen him since,” the controller is heard saying. The transmissions are from an air traffic controller at Cleveland’s Burke Lakefront Airport shortly after a Cessna Citation 525 dropped from the radar, moments after takeoff around 11:00 p.m. “I saw something come up, hit three, disappeared on me,” says one air traffic controller. The recordings include audio from the tower at Burke Lakefront Airport, the tower at Cleveland Hopkins as well as the Cleveland Center in Oberlin. Meanwhile, investigators are still trying to figure out what caused the plane to go down. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.ĬLEVELAND - Newly-released recordings shed light on the chilling moments when a plane with six people on board crashed into Lake Erie. This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated.
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