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by Geraldine Sealey
ABCNEWS.com
Runaway Plane Crashes
in S.D.; Golfer, at Least Four Others Killed
Emergency vehicles park near the site, lower left, where a Learjet
carrying golf champion Payne Stewart and at least four others crashed near
Mina, S.D., on Monday, killing everyone aboard. (Dave Weaver/AP PhotoDave
Weaver)
Oct. 25 — A runaway
Learjet carrying professional golfer Payne Stewart and possibly five other
people crashed today after drifting across the country for hours with no
one controlling the aircraft. There were no survivors.
Six National
Transportation Safety Board investigators performed a cursory inspection
of the wreckage Monday night, lighted by generator-powered spotlights. Bob
Francis, NTSB vice chairman, said only that the investigators would be
back Tuesday morning.
The plane went off
course while en route from Florida to Texas and crashed into a pasture in
the north-central part of South Dakota after flying for four hours
apparently on auto pilot.
Stewart was a part
owner of the jet, said his mother, Bee Stewart, from Springfield, Mo.
Government officials
said the plane may have suffered a rare pressurization failure. When that
occurs at high altitudes such as above 30,000 feet, pilots have a short
period of time to don an oxygen mask before slipping into unconsciousness.
It was not immediately
known whether the people on board were killed in the crash or may have
died earlier.
Also killed were
Stewart’s agents, Robert Fraley and Van Ardan, and the two pilots,
identified as Michael Kling, 43, and Stephanie Bellegarrigue, 27. The jet
was operated by Sunjet Aviation.
Fraley was CEO of
Leader Enterprises, a sports management company, and Ardan was president.
Sixth Victim
Possible
Late today, there
were unconfirmed reports that there may be a sixth victim. Jack Nicklaus
said he feared one of his golf course designers, Bruce Borland, 40, also
died in the crash. Borland was flying to Texas because he wanted to design
a course with Stewart under the Nicklaus Design banner, Nicklaus said.
Borland’s wife, Kate,
said she contacted the private jet terminal this afternoon and spoke to an
employee who had greeted her husband and confirmed he intended to board
the flight.
Officials at the crash
site said they could not tell exactly how many people had been killed.
Plane Fell Into
Field
The plane crashed
in Mina, S.D. It had taken off from Orlando, Fla., headed for Dallas. (ABCNEWS.com/
Magellan Geographix)
Eyewitnesses say the
plane fell straight down into the field, South Dakota Gov. Bill Janklow
told ABCNEWS.com from the crash site about 12 miles west of Aberdeen. No
one on the ground was hurt. Hunters in an adjacent field watched it fall,
as did state highway patrol officers who watched the plane with binoculars
as it descended from the clear sky from about 20,000 feet, Janklow said.
The jet’s impact blew a sizable crater in the earth, he said, and left the
hole full of debris.
“It’s a huge,
devastating scene,” Janklow said. “You can imagine what it did to the
airplane and the human beings on the airplane.”
Investigators will
find little to work with at the scene, Janklow said.
“Very few pieces of
this tragedy are larger than a couple square inches,” said Janklow, who
was told about the runaway jet about 40 minutes before the crash.
Possible
Depressurization
Two F-16 fighter
planes had been following the jet looking for signs of distress. Federal
officials said it appeared to be flying on auto pilot before the crash.
The Learjet 35 left
Orlando this morning at about 9:09 ET and lost radio contact about a half
hour later, officials said. It was scheduled to land in Dallas.
The last communication
officials had was that the plane was over Gainesville, Fla.
FAA spokesman Paul
Turk said the plane had flown as high as 45,000 feet and the crew did not
respond to repeated inquiries from air traffic controllers.
“What is the most
likely probability here is that this aircraft, which has a very small
cabin compared to a commercial jetliner, lost cabin pressure some time
during the climb out of Orlando,” said ABCNEWS aviation analyst John
Nance.
He said that at
altitudes above 30,000 feet, a pilot would have to strap on an oxygen mask
quickly or his mind would become so muddled from lack of oxygen — a
condition called hypoxia — that he could no longer help himself.
“The time of useful
consciousness at 25,000 feet is a fairly sedate 20 to 25 minutes. But the
time of useful consciousness at 39,000 feet is six to 12 seconds, ” said
Nance.
“The fact that this
aircraft continued climbing right through their assigned altitude on up to
almost 45,000 feet, without any call from the pilots, indicated to me that
this crisis occurred some place before 39,000 but most probably above
30,000.”
The Air Force reported
the plane had been “porpoising,” its altitude fluctuating between 22,000
and 51,000 feet.
Stewart’s Wife
Tried to Call Him
As the Lear 35 eerily
raced across a half a dozen states, Stewart’s Australian-born wife Tracey,
following the drama on television, tried to reach her husband on his
cellular phone, according to her brother.
“She was trying to
ring him on his mobile and couldn’t raise him,” Mike Ferguson, a
professional golfer, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio. “It’s
just really bad for my sister to be watching it on CNN, knowing that it
was her husband on board.”
Military
Aircraft Tracked Jet
According to an Air
Force summary, after contact was initially lost, two F-15s from Tyndall
Air Force Base, Fla., were sent to track the Learjet. The F-15s pulled
back and two F-16s in the air from Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., moved in to
track the aircraft.
After the Learjet
reached the Midwest, the Eglin F-16s pulled off and four F-16s and a
midair refueling tanker from the Tulsa National Guard followed it.
Eventually, two
F-16s from Fargo, N.D., moved in close to look into the windows to see if
the pilot was slumped over and to help clear air space. Officials hoped
that the F-16s could provide assistance to anyone on board who might have
helped land the plane safely.
The pilots drew
close and noticed no structural damage but were unable to see into the
Learjet because its windows were frosted over, indicating the temperature
inside was well below freezing.
The F-16 pilots said they saw the plane, apparently out of fuel, fall to
the ground.
A Sad Shock to
the Golf World
Stewart, 42, was one
of the most recognizable players in golf because of his trademark knickers
and tam-o’-shanter. He won 18 tournaments around the world, including
three major championships. In June, Stewart won his second U.S. Open over
Phil Mickelson with a 15-foot putt, the longest putt to ever decide that
championship on the final hole.
Stewart, who lived in
Orlando, had been expected in Houston on Tuesday for practice rounds in
advance of the Tour Championship, the PGA Tour’s final tournament of the
year for the top 30 players on its money list.
“It is difficult to
express our sense of shock and sadness over the death of Payne Stewart,”
said PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem in a statement issued from PGA
headquarters in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.
The Associated Press
contributed to this report.
Why Did F-16s
Track Jet?
Even before Payne
Stewart’s involvement made this plane crash a major story, your attention
might have been grabbed by the news that Air Force fighter jets pursued
the Learjet for hours before it went down.
The Federal
Aviation Administration asked the Air Force for help after air-traffic
controllers lost contact with the crew of the Learjet near Gainesville,
Fla., not long after it left Orlando.
First, a fighter
jet from Tyndall, Fla., was diverted from a routine training flight to
check out the Learjet. Two F-16s from another Florida base then picked up
the chase, later handing it over to two Air National Guard F-16s from
Oklahoma, which handed it over to two F-16s from Fargo, North Dakota.
Those fighters trailed the Learjet until it went down in South Dakota.
Oklahoma Air National
Guard Sgt. Ann Gray told Reuters that crew members from those last two
jets “had difficulty seeing anyone moving inside” the Learjet. The plane’s
windows were obscured by frost, suggesting sub-freezing air inside.
White House
spokesman Joe Lockhart said the National Security Council also monitored
the doomed flight, fearing the jet might crash in a populated area.
The president could
have ordered fighters to shoot down the Learjet to avoid that potential
tragedy, but Lockhart said no such recommendation had been made. Pentagon
spokesman Kenneth Bacon confirmed that the military never considered
shooting down Stewart’s plane.
President Clinton told
reporters on the White House lawn: “I am very grateful for the work the
FAA did, and for the two Air Force pilots, and the others in the Air Force
that monitored this plane and made every effort to try to make contact
with it.”
ABCNEWS aviation
analyst John Nance told ABCNEWS.com chat participants this afternoon,
“There is no set procedure for the Air Force or Navy to scramble an armed
fighter for [that purpose] & simply because it’s an unprecedented
occurrence.”
The unusual scenario
revives memories of an eerily similar pursuit and crash nearly 20 years
ago. Louisiana State University football coach Bo Rein died in January
1980 when his turboprop jet crashed into the Atlantic, hours after
controllers lost contact with it and sent military planes to try to
intercept it.
As with the Stewart
crash, it was speculated that depressurization caused the deaths of Rein
and his pilot, long before their plane ran out of fuel and plunged into
the sea off the Virginia coast. But this mystery is not likely ever to be
solved, as their bodies were never found.
—Reuters and The
Associated Press contributed to this story.
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