NTSB: Failure to maintain airspeed led to crash
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Failure to maintain adequate airspeed in gusty crosswinds was the probable cause of a plane crash that killed four people near Faribault in November 2007, the National Transportation Safety Board said.
In a finding approved Sunday, the NTSB said the pilot did not maintain airspeed adequate for the gusty crosswinds of up to 22 knots. It said the single-engine Cirrus SR22 stalled, went into a spin and crashed while the pilot was making a second landing attempt at the Faribault Municipal Airport, shortly after aborting his first attempt. The plane's left wing clipped the ground, sending the plane cartwheeling.
The crash killed the pilot, Dr. Chester Mayo, 51, of Aberdeen, S.D., - an orthopedic surgeon and descendant of the brothers who built the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. Also killed were his son Chester Mayo Jr., 17, and two of his son's friends, Cory Creger, 19, and Jay Wang, 17.
Mayo was taking his son and friends back from Aberdeen to Faribault after spending Thanksgiving in South Dakota. Both Chester Mayo Jr. and Wang were seniors at Shattuck-St. Mary's School; Creger was the younger Mayo's girlfriend.
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The winds at the Faribault airport were out of the south at 15 knots, gusting to 22 knots, at the time of the crash, just before 3 p.m. on Nov. 25, 2007.
A pilot of a different Cirrus SR22 aborted a landing on the same runway due to gusty crosswinds about two hours before the fatal crash, the NTSB said.
Since the crash, pilots landing on that runway have been advised to be alert for turbulence and possible windshear when winds are out of the south.
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(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
