NTSB releases preliminary report on Bolingbrook plane crash

The National Transportation Safety Board says a small plane that crashed in September killing two people touched down multiple times on a Bolingbrook runway as it tried to land.

The preliminary report released this week by investigators says surveillance video shows the single-engine plane trying to land at Clow Airport in Bolingbrook. The plane resumed climbing, turned left then tried to descend again before hitting a tree and light pole. It eventually crashed into the parking lot about a half mile away, bursting into flames and killing the two people on board.

The small plane was attempting to land in the early evening of Sept. 25 at Clow Airport after flying in from Georgetown, Ky.

Surgeon Narayan Venguswamy, known as Dr. Vengu at Georgetown Community Hospital in Kentucky, was the pilot. He had been badly burned and later died at a hospital. His wife, Jay, was pronounced dead on the scene.

Pilot Howard McIntyre, who landed at Clow three hours before the crash, told ABC 7 News that the combination of an aborted landing and a crosswind can make for tricky flying.

“As you pull up, the wind kind of pushes you down a little bit so you really have to watch and make sure you have a good rate of climb,” McIntyre said.

The charred remains of the single engine Cirrus SR-20 were removed from the scene the next day and taken to a secure location. The NTSB says this type of aircraft does not have a so-called black box — a flight data recorder — and the fire impacted the investigation.

“It does become somewhat more difficult because we have less airplane, but we can still get what we need,” said Josh Lindberg of the NTSB.

Investigators are looking into whether the plane ran out of space on the runway.

The plane was built in 2004 and recertified as airworthy a little more than 18 months ago.