Small plane crashes in Illinois, killing 2

CHICAGO — A small plane making a cargo run had almost reached Chicago Executive Airport in Wheeling, Ill.,
when it crashed into a forest preserve Tuesday afternoon, killing the
two men aboard and setting off an investigation into the
still-unexplained cause.

Officials said the Learjet 35A, owned by Royal Air Charter of Waterford, Mich., left suburban Detroit about 90 minutes before the crash, scheduled to pick up cargo in Wheeling and ferry it to Atlanta. It had been cleared to land at the Chicago Executive Airport when it went down about 1:30 p.m. CST officials said.

Debris was scattered in the woods of a Cook County Forest Preserve about a mile from the airport, and the fuselage was partially submerged in the Des Plaines River. The water was slick with fuel.

Officials found the bodies in the wreckage, but said they might not be able to recover them until Wednesday.

Authorities offered no initial theories about what caused the crash. The National Transportation Safety Board indicated that its probe would focus on the plane itself.

“We will look at the systems, the structure, the engine,” said senior safety investigator Pam Sullivan.

But Robert Mark, a veteran commercial pilot who himself flew into Chicago Executive Airport shortly after the incident, believes the crash shows all the signs of a stall, the loss of lift that keeps a plane airborne.

“When they go in nose down, that’s a classic stall spin. There’s almost no other option,” Mark said.

The stall could have occurred as the plane just circled to make the final approach to the runway, experts said.

A circling approach was required Tuesday because the
winds were out of the west-northwest. The circling pattern is a more
complicated maneuver than just coming in straight.

Authorities did not release the identities of the pilot and co-pilot killed in the crash, and officials at Royal Air declined comment.

But spokesman J. David VanderVeen of the Oakland County International Airport, where the plane was based, said company officials told him the men were experienced with the Learjet.

The Learjet 35A is a fixed-wing, two-engine craft with seating for 10. Brian Biernacke, 55, a professional pilot from Wauconda, Ill., who flies into Chicago Executive several times a week, called it one of the safest planes in the sky.

“Even if you lost an engine, the airplane would fly great,” he said.

Chicago Executive saw its last fatal crash in January 2006, when a twin-engine Cessna plunged into a construction company’s storage yard as the plane approached the airport. Four Chicago-area executives were killed, and the National Transportation Safety Board later concluded that pilot error was the cause.

According to NTSB records, Royal Air’s last fatal crash happened on an overnight, three-leg flight in March 2004. Then, a twin-engine plane had already ferried cargo from Rockford, Ill., to Maryland when it crashed before dawn on its way to Maine. Investigators said the pilot lost control but they couldn’t figure out why.

Court and FAA records show that the 31-year-old company, with a fleet of 35 planes, ran afoul of safety rules in the past.

In 1999, the company agreed to pay a $250,000
fine for maintenance and record-keeping violations. Federal prosecutors
complained the company didn’t conduct scheduled inspections of fleet
engines, propellers and wing flaps.

Patrick Doherty, who lives about 400 yards from the
crash site, said 20 minutes before the plane came down he had been
walking his two dogs on that very spot. He said he was resting at home
when he heard a noise that he thought came from his furnace.

Only later, when he heard the racket from a
helicopter hovering above the site, did he realize something far more
serious had happened — and that he had been lucky to come home when he
had.

“I was thinking, ‘How weird is this? You go for a walk and get hit by a Learjet,’ ” he said. “It’s kind of bizarre.”

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