Few New Details Emerge in Soldotna, Alaska Crash
Without a Flight Data Recorder or a Cockpit Voice Recorder and no eyewitnesses, NTSB investigators didn’t offer many new details in their preliminary report regarding the July 7 Soldotna plane crash which killed 2 South Carolina families and the pilot.
Owner and pilot Walter “Willy” Rediske’s De Haviland DHC-3 Otter crashed on the runway soon after takeoff from the Soldotna airport. Two vacationing families from Greenville, SC were on board and had chartered the plane for a flight to Bear Mountain Lodge off Alaska’s Chinitna Bay.
According to a story in the Alaska Dispatch, NTSB Investigator Earl Weener said ”The airplane was airborne prior to its impact with the ground, and it impacted in a right-wing down, nose-low attitude,” about 80 feet from the runway. The propeller was also reportedly still spinning at the time of impact, though whether that implied the engine was still operational wasn’t clear.
The preliminary report added that the plane was the “destroyed by impact forces and postcrash fire.” Rediske was headed to Bear Mountain Lodge in “visual meterological conditions.” No flight plan was filed.
Excellent CNN story by writer Thom Patterson details the devastating impact the loss of the two young families has had on the community in Greenville, SC. Both families were “very involved in their community, very involved in their church and their schools.”
Related Story
More about the McManus and Antonakos Families at CNN.com
http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/10/us/alaska-carolina-plane-crash-victims
