02/02/2008
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Staff photo by Jim Evansfrom the Kennebec Journal
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from the Morning Sentinel
The pilot of the six-seat Cessna Citation C-525 declared an emergency minutes after taking off but was unable to fly to safety, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Jim Peters said.
Weather was poor at the time of the accident, with sleet and freezing rain reported at the airport.
The plane was registered to Jeanette Symons of San Francisco, Peters said. The identities of the victims were not confirmed Friday night.
The victims were removed from the crash site late Friday and taken to the state medical examiner's office, Peters said.
"I don't think there's any hope of any survivors," said Steve McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety. "There was a fire upon impact, a debris field and very little left of the aircraft."
Two people were seen boarding the jet before it took off at 5:45 p.m. from Augusta en route to Lincoln, Neb., airport officials said. The people were reportedly a female pilot and a passenger, reported to be a child age 6 or 8.
Rescue workers located the wreckage before 6:30 p.m.
"We found a 200-by-300-yard debris field," Gardiner Fire Chief Mark Kimball said from the scene about 7 p.m. "We are aggressively searching for victims."
As emergency responders searched near Melissa Drive in West Gardiner for any survivors, firefighters, sheriff's deputies and Maine State Police officers set up a command center at the West Gardiner Fire Station to coordinate the rescue effort.
Inside the fire station, neighbors said chaos and uncertainty reigned as officials began coordinating efforts with limited information available. Officials prohibited a reporter from entering the command post.
During the search, residents lined Melissa Drive with snowmobiles and cars. Some attempted to lend snowmobiles and ATVs to firefighters challenged with reaching a remote, heavily-wooded site about a mile from the the road.
Residents who were outdoors at the time of the crash said the plane caught fire on impact and ignited vegetation surrounding the crash site.
"I saw an orange glow in the sky," Melissa Drive resident Eric Lisch said. "I wasn't sure what it was. That would be the last I thing I would have thought -- a plane crash."
Melissa Drive resident Karl Swenson said he and his wife heard the plane crash from inside their house.
"We didn't think much of it, until everyone showed up," Swenson said.
After the plane took off at 5:45 p.m., an FAA air traffic controller in Portland was talking to the pilot by radio and tracking the aircraft on radar, Peters said.
When the plane was at about 3,000 feet, the pilot declared an emergency, saying there was a problem with the plane's attitude indicator, which shows how level the aircraft is, he said.
The controller attempted to guide the pilot back to the Augusta airport but lost radio contact and saw the plane descend rapidly on radar, Peters said.
"We initially got the word from the FAA, presumably because it disappeared from radar," McCausland said.
At the time the plane took off, a mix of snow, sleet and freezing rain was moving across the state, but it's too soon to speculate on the cause of the crash, McCausland said.
When searchers arrived at the crash site, much of the wreckage was on fire, McCausland.
He said nobody on the ground was injured.
The jet had been parked at the airport for several days, according to David Smith, chief pilot for Maine Instrument Flight. He said he did not know the names of the people aboard.
The aircraft arrived Saturday in Augusta from Quad City International Airport in Moline, Ill.
Smith and two others fielded phone calls from the press and others at the Maine Instrument Flight office at the Augusta airport Friday night. Most of the lights were off inside the nearby commercial terminal at the time the crash was reported.
"Colgan's done for the night," Smith said. "They quit early because of the weather."
John Guimond, manager of the Augusta State Airport, said runways were not plowed Friday evening during the storm.
"You let the rain hit the snow and scrape it off when it stops raining," he said.
Guimond said he expected to see inspectors from the National Transportation Safety Board and the local FAA office at the airport today, since Augusta was the point of departure.
Guimond said he had little information about the airplane or who may have been aboard. "Because it's general aviation, Maine Instrument Flight handles all the private planes," he said.
At the scene, rescuers prepared for a long night.
Jeanette Stackpole, wife of West Gardiner Fire Chief Ken Stackpole, and her son unloaded boxes of bottled water from a car at the West Gardiner Fire Department.
"I have all the supplies at my house," she said. "I help out where I can."
The Associated Press and staff photographer Andy Molloy contributed to this report.
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