NTSB: Brakes, Reverse Thrusters Applied Prior To Crash
BEDFORD, Mass. (CBS/AP) — The black boxes containing the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorded the final moments before a fiery weekend crash at Hanscom Field that killed Philadelphia Inquirer co-owner Lewis Katz and six others on his private jet.
National Transportation Safety Board staff retrieved the data boxes Monday evening after an investigator was lowered into the cockpit. The wreckage lay across a ravine off the end of a runway at Hanscom Field in Bedford.
During a news briefing Tuesday evening, NTSB Investigator Luke Schiada said a preliminary investigation shows brake pressure was rising as the plane accelerated down the runway. The thrust-reversers were also being applied and the pilots were heard talking about a "control issue" prior to the crash.
The plane was reportedly going 165-knots at the time of the crash. Schiada said the plane never got off the ground.
Aviation expert Anthony Tivnan said the evidence indicates there was an effort by the pilot to abort the takeoff very late in its course down the runway due to some major issue.
"I wouldn't foresee a flight crew making that type of decision unless it was an absolute last choice," Tivnan said.
At the crash site, tire marks were visible where the Gulfstream IV jet ran off the runway, burst through a chain-link fence and toppled part of a runway lighting system.
The cockpit was burned but mostly intact, with the nose resting on a hill, and the burned-out fuselage lying in the ravine.
Schiada said Monday that recovering the boxes was its focus, but the team was still assembling a variety evidence, including maintenance records, crew medical records, airport surveillance video, and witnesses' accounts.
Police released some 911 calls in which neighbors described a loud explosion and towering column of smoke. One caller Saturday night said it looked like "an atomic bomb went off" and described "a mushroom cloud" of smoke and fire.
Schiada said the pilot had 18,500 hours of flight experience and the first officer had 11,200 hours.
The chief pilot was James McDowell, of Georgetown, Delaware, authorities said. Spouses identified two of the crew members as flight attendant Teresa Benhoff, 48, of Easton, Maryland, and co-pilot Bauke "Mike" de Vries, 45, of Marlton, New Jersey.
The other victims were identified as Katz's neighbor at the New Jersey shore, Anne Leeds, a 74-year-old retired preschool teacher he invited on the trip just that day; Marcella Dalsey, the director of Katz's son's foundation; and Susan Asbell, 67, the wife of a former New Jersey county prosecutor.
The trip would be the last of many over the years the flight crew took with Katz; all three had worked for him for 10 to 15 years, relatives said. They had been expecting to take Katz, a sports team owner-turned-philanthropist, to France later this month, said Benhoff's husband, Dan.
The co-pilot, de Vries, had come to the U.S. from the Netherlands as a young man to attend flight school. In the early 1990s, he was a passenger in a two-man crash that killed a pilot at a southern New Jersey airport, said his wife, Shelly.
"Lucky for him, he didn't remember it, and he didn't remember about 12 to 24 hours before it," she said.
So he had no fear, she said, and still loved to fly.
Katz had gone to Massachusetts on Saturday to attend an education-related event at the home of historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. He often would take spur-of-the-moment trips, and his crew was at the ready. Benhoff said his wife was on call all day, every day, and they spoke throughout the day Saturday.
"She loved to fly," he said. "She trusted that airplane."
Benhoff loved working for Katz, her husband said, and had gotten to know Katz's late wife, his children and grandchildren during their vacations, business trips and flights to and from family homes in Philadelphia; Palm Beach, Florida; the New Jersey shore; and New York.
The family of McDowell, the chief pilot, declined to comment.
Katz, 72, made his fortune investing in parking lots, billboards and the New York Yankees' cable network. He once owned the NBA's New Jersey Nets and the NHL's New Jersey Devils and in 2012 became a minority investor in the Inquirer.
Less than a week before the crash, Katz and Harold H.F. "Gerry" Lenfest struck a deal to gain full control of the Inquirer as well as the Philadelphia Daily News and Philly.com by buying out their co-owners for $88 million.
A public memorial service for him was planned for Wednesday at Temple University in Philadelphia, where Katz was an alumnus and trustee.
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