Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, September 28, 1993 TAG: 9309280071
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The 122-page "incomplete" report, released Monday by the NTSB, reveals other dramatic details of the fatal crash near Bristol, Tenn., but offers no theories and reaches no conclusions on what caused it.
Two more months may pass before the NTSB issues a final report and a probable cause.
The twin-engine Fairchild Merlin IIIC, owned by Hooters of America, the restaurant chain that sponsored Kulwicki's stock car team, crashed at 9:28 p.m. while on approach to Tri-City Airport in Blountville, Tenn. Kulwicki, 38, and three others were killed.
The NTSB report confirms what the agency reported earlier - that neither engine was working on the Merlin when it crashed and that weather conditions may have been a factor.
The report says other pilots landing at the airport on the chilly, rainy night reported light to moderate icing. And it indicates that the de-icing equipment on the ill-fated plane may not have been working properly.
During his final flight, Kulwicki made at least one phone call from his personal cellular phone to an unidentified friend in Johnson City, Tenn. "The friend did not recall any mention of airplane problems during the three-minute phone call," the report said.
Nor was there ever any report of problems from pilot Charlie Campbell, who also was killed.
At 9:25 p.m., three minutes before the crash, the Fairchild Merlin IIIC twin-engine turboprop plane was cleared for approach to the airport.
At 9:26 p.m. and 55 seconds, air traffic approach controller William H. Van Deman III "handed off" the plane to local tower controller Michael L. Adams and told Campbell to contact Adams on radio frequency "one niner point five."
Three seconds later, Campbell routinely responded: "Nineteen five. So long."
Those were his last words.
About 30 seconds later, Adams was watching Mike Colyer, Dale Earnhardt's pilot, make his final approach in the twin-engine plane carrying Earnhardt. Suddenly, the controller heard "a short, unintelligible transmission" on the radio.
Colyer heard it, too. It "sounded like a grunt or groan, like you would hear if you had the wind knocked out of you," Colyer said in a statement included in the NTSB report.
From the tower, Adams witnessed Kulwicki's plane fall out of the sky.
"I observed the lights of an aircraft emerge from the base of the clouds . . . in a steep, rapid descent . . . and disappear below the horizon," Adams said in a statement. "I called [the plane] but got no reply."
Seconds later, Adams called controller Van Deman.
"Tell [the FAA supervisor] to come up here," Adams said. "I believe we just lost one. I saw him go. I think he went straight in."
"You want me to take the phones off the hook?" asked Van Deman.
"You might wanta do it, Bill," Adams responded.
The NTSB report said a technical analysis of the four de-icer boots on the four propeller blade assemblies showed that none had any "electrical continuity."
NTSB spokesman Brent Bahler said he could not comment on the factual findings, but an NTSB source told The Associated Press that could mean the de-icing mechanisms were not activated properly.
Pilots who landed at the airport that night had different reports of the severity of the icing problem.
Winston Cup car owner D.K. Ulrich, who landed earlier that evening and already was at his motel when Kulwicki's plane crashed, said he encountered enough ice to prompt him to activate his de-icing boots "and remove approximately one-half inch accumulation."
Keywords:
AUTO RACING
by CNB