Pilot error blamed in Palwaukee crash
A Cessna aircraft carrying four area businessmen into a Wheeling airport last year wasn't going fast enough to stop an engine stall that sent the plane plummeting to the ground, killing all aboard, a federal probe says.
The ruling on the cause of the fiery plane crash comes after about 18 months of investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board.
The twin-engine Cessna fell from the sky around 6:30 p.m. on Jan. 30, 2006, into a vacant lot behind a Wheeling construction company.
The plane exploded and all four aboard were killed instantly. The victims where:
창€¢Mark Turek, a 59-year-old Winnetka resident, senior vice president with Morgan Stanley, a husband and father of three daughters
창€¢ Michael Waugh, 37, of Algonquin, a husband, father of three and the first general manager for Shaw's Crab House in Schaumburg
창€¢Sybaris Pool Suites founder Ken Knudson, 61, of Lake Zurich, a husband, father and part owner of the plane
창€¢Financial adviser Scott Garland, 40, of Chicago's North Side, a father of two young children.
The crash on that overcast night marked one of the worst accidents to occur at the small airport just north of O'Hare International Airport.
At the time, crash-scene evidence, eyewitness accounts and expert opinion pointed to a failure of at least one of the Cessna 421B's two engines about a half-mile south of the Chicago Executive Airport.
Knudson and Turek were the only licensed pilots on the plane that night as the four headed back from a business trip in Kansas City. However, the NTSB report released Wednesday said it remains unclear which of them was at the controls at the time of the engine stall.
The NTSB investigation couldn't find any problems with either engine that may have existed before the crash.
According to radar analysis, the plane's speed dipped to about 82 knots as it made a left turn to get in a traffic pattern to land at the Chicago Executive Airport, the report says. The stall speeds for the airplane range from 81 to 94 knots.