Please remember I am only the messanger. I gleaned the following information from the daily Flight Safety Information Service.
Johneb
Flight Safety Information (19MAY04-203)
Witness says plane was doing stunts before fatal crash in sky
Pilot who died was swiftly nosediving, climbing, woman says
Police tape surrounds a Cessna 170 on Monday after it collided with another Cessna on Sunday night. Ghryn E. Loveness, 20, who was flying the Cessna 170, survived the crash while the pilot of the other plane, Scott Christopher Devlin, 33, was killed.
TENINO -- Authorities have identified two pilots whose airplanes collided Sunday night above a rural area in southern Thurston County, killing one of them and injuring the other. The pilot who died, Scott Christopher Devlin, 33, was on his way to Renton from his hometown of Camas when his Cessna 210 crashed into another northbound aircraft, county and federal officials said Monday.
Ghryn E. Loveness, 20, was flying the other airplane. He was headed home to Vashon Island in a Cessna 170 after departing from Portland, county and federal officials said.
Thurston County Sheriff's deputies responded to a call at 8:39 p.m. Sunday at the 7600 block of Skookumchuck Road, where they found two crash sites about one-quarter mile apart. The planes collided about 800 feet above ground.
A witness who called 9-1-1 saw Devlin's plane doing stunts in the air, including sharp nosedives followed by swift ascents, shortly before the collision. Kathy Grayless had been watching Devlin's airplane from her kitchen window as it completed several flying stunts, she said Monday.
Then she heard a crash and spotted pieces of the plane falling from the sky. A lone wing twirling down from above was the last part of Devlin's plane that Grayless saw. "You couldn't even tell that it was a plane," she said of the wreckage. "It was a big, mangled mess. It was horrible to watch because you knew that (a
crash) is what had happened."
Loveness told witnesses that he didn't see the other plane coming. There were no passengers in either airplane.
The Thurston County Coroner's Office notified Devlin's wife of the crash Monday and will conduct an autopsy today. Loveness, who was conscious and talking when authorities arrived, was taken to Providence St. Peter Hospital on Sunday night. He has since been released from the Olympia hospital.
The National Transportation Safety Board took over the investigation Monday morning. Efforts to reach investigators Monday were unsuccessful. The Federal Aviation Administration also is conducting its own investigation. The results of the FAA's investigation will be turned over to the National Transportation Safety Board.
"We're looking for any anomalies in the normal flight plan," said Mike Fergus, an FAA spokesman. "We're trying to make sure everything was the way that it should be." Both planes were flying under a set of flight rules that do not require the pilots to file their plans with the FAA or any other government agency.
"That means they could merely take off and go to their destination," Fergus said. Such airborne collisions are unusual in Thurston County.
In the past decade, there have been 13 airplane accidents in cities throughout Thurston County, according to a National Transportation Safety Board database. Those figures might not include accidents in unincorporated areas of the county.
Most of the accidents involved mechanical failures. Two were fatal.
"Ones like this where one plane strikes another one is extremely rare," said Capt. Dan Kimball, of the Sheriff's Office. "This is like an example of the worst luck somebody could have."
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