Plane crashes in Massachusetts

[JoeJoe440]

Reports from this site say a light aircraft has crashed:

http://www.itv.com/news/683948.html

Wonder what type of aircraft it is.

Joe,

[Richard]

Yikes that sounds like a nasty crash. I wonder what the weather conditions were like at the time.

[Freightdogg]

The plane that crashed was a Beechcraft King Air 200. According to the news I have read it had departed from La Guardia (KLGA) and was bound for Bedford, MA (KBED) when the crew requested a diversion to the nearest airport at Fitchburg, MA. There were icing conditions at the time of the crash and given that KLGA to KBED is a relatively short trip I doubt that they had chosen to climb above the icing layers.

The owner of the aircraft was a prominent real-estate developer and was also the CEO and Chairman of the Intrepid Museum Foundation, owners of the Intrepid Air-Sea-Space Museum aboard the decommissioned WWII vintage aircraft carrier Intrepid in NYC.

Six were killed in the crash including the aircraft owner, his wife, the crew, and two designers in the employ of the owner. The owner's 13 year old daughter survived.

One early report I read said that the wings were not with the fuselage wreckage, but a post-crash photo showed a relatively intact fuselage that would not be consistent with wing separation at altitude. Wing separation was a problem experienced by some King Air models during the 80s, but has long since been fixed by the use of inconell attachment bolts or the use of a spar strap. Regular wing spar corrosion inspections are required by Airworthiness Directive.

Other than the requested diversion the crew gave no indication of any kind of trouble to ATC, but a cockpit voice recorder has been recovered.

Having flown this type in corporate service I can think of only two possibilities barring catastrophic airframe failure, both are icing related. The first would be the possibility that the crew failed to open the ice vane doors in the engine air inlets and therefore gradually lost engine power due to ice build up in the inlets. Given the age of the crew I doubt this one though as it's the kind of thing an experienced crew would not forget. The other is that the T-tail on a King Air 200 tends to build ice much more quickly than the main wing due to a sharper leading edge. The tail is very difficult to see from the cockpit and most pilots tend to gauge the need for use of de-icing boots by checking the main wing. In certain conditions a King Air 200 tail can ice up enough to lose control of the aircraft while the main wing can appear to have very little ice build up. In this particular crash that may have been a factor. Of course I am speculating based solely on information I have gleaned from news reports so I may be way off base. I will be interested to see the FAA and NTSB reports. Normally the King Air 200 is a very safe and docile aircraft and I have flown nearly all the King Air models in icing conditions with very little trouble. I was honestly surprised to hear that it was a King Air that was involved.