ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, April 17, 1996 TAG: 9604170053
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: RETREAT
SOURCE: TODD JACKSON STAFF WRITER
NOTE: Below
When Kathy Shockley heard that an airplane might have crashed near her home Tuesday afternoon, she decided to drive around to see what was going on.
By chance, she was the first person to find what Franklin County rescue workers had been seeking for two hours: the wreck and the two people who died in it, an Austin, Texas, physician and his wife.
Franklin County Public Safety Director Claude Webster identified the victims as Charles Diseker Jr., 68, and Estelle Diseker, 66. Webster said they were probably on their way to visit their son, Charles Diseker III, an air traffic controller who lives in Leesburg, Va. The plane was en route from Greenville, S.C., to Leesburg.
From 4:15 until 6:15 p.m., rescue workers and sheriff's deputies had combed a five-mile radius around the town of Boones Mill after the plane lost radio contact with Roanoke Regional Airport. The first part of the search was conducted in a storm that whipped 50-mph winds, hard rain and snow across the county.
They found nothing.
The small two-seat plane lost radio contact during the storm, Webster said. Its last reported coordinates placed it over Floyd County, but its projected flight path to Roanoke pushed the search into Franklin County.
At first, there was speculation that the plane crashed into Cahas Mountain in the northwest part of the county - a mountain that has claimed several lives in plane crashes over the years.
A rescue helicopter was called in from Roanoke to scan the snow-covered top of the mountain, and a state police helicopter flew in from Abingdon to search the mountains of Floyd County.
If Shockley hadn't come across the crash site, it might have gone undiscovered for some time.
Shockley lives near the Retreat community in Franklin County. She stopped to pick her children up at a baby sitter's house in Rocky Mount about 6 p.m., and a neighbor told her about reports of the crash.
Shockley said she drove down Virginia 641 by the Retreat Store and didn't see anything, so she turned right on Virginia 738 to turn around.
She pulled her car into the driveway of Bill and Margaret Holt's house.
And that's when she saw it.
There, between a grove of spindly trees next to a small creek, just 100 yards from the Holts' white clapboard house, were the twisted metal remains of the plane.
"I said, 'Oh my God, is that a plane?' I walked up to it and saw that there were two people there, and I screamed, 'Call the police! Call 911!'''
Margaret Holt picked up the phone and notified the Sheriff's Office.
Minutes later, Webster and Fire Marshal Bennie Russell - who had set up a command center about a mile away on Virginia 643 - arrived. They jogged to the plane, confirmed the two fatalities and spread yellow police tape around the crash.
Just a few minutes after that, a horde of rescue workers, state troopers and curious onlookers converged on the scene.
An investigation of the crash was just beginning Tuesday evening, and Webster said a cause had not been determined.
Jan Jackson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service's Blacksburg office, said the conditions were right for wind shear - a sudden change in wind speed or direction. "It was certainly gusty enough that it could have had an adverse effect on a small plane."
Margaret Holt, who has lived for 40 years along the quiet stretch of Virginia 643 in the Franklin County hills, said she had never experienced anything like Tuesday's crash.
"I heard a loud crash about 4 o'clock," she said. "But it was storming something terrible, and my husband said he thought a tree had fallen. It really bothers me. I'm going to be awake all night."
Shockley's eyes were red from her tears. She sipped water from a plastic cup she had been given by Margaret Holt.
"There's no way I can drive right now," she said.
Webster said the plane - a GlasAir GL20 made of a figerglass composite, with an estimated worth of $150,000 - crashed nose first into the ground. It came to rest between two places it could have possibly landed safely - a large grassy knoll on one side, and an open field on the other.
The FAA said the pilot had thousands of hours of flight experience, Webster said.
Staff writer Betty Hayden contributed to this story.
LENGTH: Medium: 90 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: WAYNE DEEL\Staff. 1. Officials work to remove the twoby CNBvictims from the wreckage. Bad weather plagued efforts to find the
crash site. 2. Franklin County rescue workers carry away the body of
one victim. 3. (headshot) Shockley.color. Graphic: Map by staff.
color. KEYWORDS: FATALITY