Plane crash?

[steve-in-kville]

https://lancasteronline.com/news/region ... %20Reading


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Two men from Lancaster County died earlier this month when a small plane they were on crashed while flying from Indiana to Lebanon County.

A small plane heading to Myerstown from Bloomfield, Indiana, crashed in West Virginia on Thursday, Aug. 11, killing the three people onboard, the Marion County Sheriff's Department told told WVNews. Dwayne K. Weaver, 32, of East Earl and Wesley K. Martin, 30, of Narvon have now been identified by information provided by their families to LNP | LancasterOnline as two of three people on the plane at the time of the crash.

Officials have not yet identified the third person on the plane.

The Marion County Sheriff's Department told WVNews officials learned at around 7 p.m. on Aug. 11 that the plane went down in the Mannington/Metz area of of Marion County, according to the report. First responders found a detached wing and the wrest of the wreckage in the Campbells Run area of the county. The area is about 90 miles south of Pittsburgh.

Both Weaver and Martin were involved with Fresh Start Counseling Ministries in Indiana, according to information provided by their families. The organization's website describes it as a "Christian Discipleship center designed to assist and strengthen the church by providing biblical training to people in need."

[Grace]

Dwayne Weaver and Wesley Martin Obituaries. The last I heard, the pilot, Rod Martin's body has not been released yet.


https://memorials.groffeckenroth.com/dw ... nY848n-NAk

https://memorials.groffeckenroth.com/we ... nY848n-NAk

[steve-in-kville]

The last I heard, the pilot, Rod Martin's body has not been released yet.

Was he the pilot?

[Grace]

The last I heard, the pilot, Rod Martin's body has not been released yet.

Was he the pilot?

Yes, he was. As of last night, his widow said his body will now be released, which is a praise. They have one of their children getting married in September. So they are planing a funeral and a wedding.

[hillperson]

https://memorials.groffeckenroth.com/ro ... /index.php

Obituary for Rod Martin.

[MaxPC]

I am quite saddened about this. We are offering up prayers for the families.

[Grace]

This from Lancaster Online Today. I did not post the link, as it has a paywall.

The pilot of a plane that crashed earlier this month in West Virginia, resulting in his death and that of two other Lancaster County men, was flying in bad weather and wasn’t certified to fly by instruments only, according to a preliminary report by the National Transportation Safety Board.

Rodney G. Martin, 50, of East Earl, was flying the 1980 Piper Saratoga back to Pennsylvania from Indiana when the crash happened about 6:05 p.m. Aug. 11, near Metz, about 60 miles south of Pittsburgh.

Robert Katz, a Dallas, Texas-based pilot of 41 years and a certified flight instructor, said the pilot should have landed until bad weather passed, based on his review of the report and flight data posted at flightaware.com.

‘“When you're flying in the clouds, it's like being completely surrounded by fog. You see nothing, just white or gray,” Katz said Monday. “And you cannot tell which way is up, except by reference to your instruments. And he would not possess the skill or the competence to handle the airplane accordingly.”

According to the NTSB report released Friday, the six-seat Piper PA32 aircraft was flying under Visual Flight Rules. It was flying approximately parallel to and south of a band of light to extreme precipitation that extended across Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

According to the NTSB report released Friday, the six-seat Piper PA32 aircraft was flying under Visual Flight Rules.

About 13 minutes before the crash, the pilot told an air traffic controller he was looking to turn left to try to “get over the top side of this stuff,” to which the controller advised there was a line of moderate to extreme precipitation, but there could be some slight gaps in the storm, the report said.

In the pilot’s final communication a few minutes before the crash, the pilot again indicated he was turning further left and told there was a small gap about six miles ahead of him, the report said. The plane continued through areas of light to extreme precipitation. Flight track data then “depicted a steep, descending, right turn that continued until data was lost.”

Emergency crews found the main body of the plane in a hilly, wooded area about an hour after the crash, according to the report. Crews found the wings and tail in the days after. The left wing was about 100 yards west of the crash and the right wing was about 400 yards southwest.
Katz said data indicated the plane’s wings broke off, sending the plane tumbling to the ground.

“Both wings were separated at their respective roots,” the report said. “The fracture surfaces displayed at each wing and their corresponding wing root at the fuselage were consistent with overstress fracture.”

Said Katz: “The flight track tells us that the flight came to an abrupt end at 9,200 feet, which tells me that the airplane broke up in flight. We can also see that the course being flown in the last several radar hits was erratic, suggesting that the pilot was disoriented.”

Based on his years of experience as a pilot, Katz surmised that Martin “was panicked. He was struggling with the airplane. He's fighting with an airplane that's not fighting with him.
He just does not know how to control the airp Katz frequently speaks to the media after crashes.

“It is a public safety hazard,” he said. “That airplane could have come down anywhere — somebody's head, somebody's house, a schoolyard full of children. The collateral damage could have been enormous.”

Peter Knudsen, an NTSB spokesperson, said the preliminary report is based on factual information developed by investigators.
“Importantly, it does not include an analysis,” he said Monday.

The facts will be used to determine the probable cause of the crash during the course of the complete investigation, which can take one to two years, Knudsen said.

Rodney Martin began flying in 2005 and had 387 total hours of flight experience, 232 of those hours in the plane that crashed, the report said.
Rodney Martin’s burial was Monday. A phone message left at a number believed to be his widow’s was not immediately returned.
Passengers Dwayne K. Weaver, 32, of East Earl, and Wesley K. Martin, 30, of Narvon, were also killed.

The men, all members of Blue Ball Mennonite Church, flew to Washington, Indiana, for church business at the Fresh Start Training Center, leaving Deck Airport near Myerstown, Lebanon County, about 7:35 a.m. that day. They began their return about 3:43 p.m.

[steve-in-kville]

Prayers to the families that were left behind.

[Grace]

Prayers to the families that were left behind.

I agree.

[ken_sylvania]

Maybe Katz should go work for the NTSB since he's so much better than they are at figuring out what happened. Somehow this article grinds my gears a bit.