JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board on Monday collected items from the site of a deadly small plane crash at an airport on Jacksonville’s Westside and are working to determine what caused the crash.
The pilot and passenger aboard the plane died. News4JAX aviation expert Ed Booth says the NTSB will look into the background of the pilot.
“They will take a look at their credentials, their recent experience, whether they are current to fly the airplane under the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) regulations,” Booth said.
As for the plane, investigators will look at the engine, logbooks for maintenance history and any other information that could explain the cause of the crash.
Booth pointed out that as many as 80% of all small airplane accidents are due to a loss of control.
“In all likelihood, it will be the loss of control of the airplane by the pilot. There may be some contributing factors such as an engine failure, but that unfortunately remains the cause of most accidents of small airplanes like this, commonly called pilot error,” Booth said.
According to FlightAware, the pilot took off at 10:41 a.m. from Herlong Recreational Airport. The plan traveled northeast, then north before turning back toward the airport.
Next, FlightAware shows, the plane made a couple of short circles and then crashed less than a mile from the airport. The flight lasted 22 minutes.
Flight records also show the plane was flown nine days before the crash -- on Dec. 17. It lasted for 18 minutes and traveled a total of 23 miles.
We know few details about the two people on the plane, but we do know the plane was registered to a business called Sterling Silver Flyers LLC in Montana.
As each second leading up to the crash is investigated, some information may never be known. The plane’s gauge from altitude was not working, according to data. It shows zero for the entire flight.
It will be challenging to figure what, if anything, was said by the pilot before the crash because there’s no FAA control tower at Herlong Recreational Airport, only a published frequency for pilots to talk back and forth. This is not uncommon for small airports.
The investigation could take up to two years.