DANGER ON THE GROUND

Close calls put public at risk

BY RONNIE GREENE

rgreene@MiamiHerald.com

Across the country, cargo planes have crashed on golf courses, by an electric plant, in a lake at the foot of high-rise condos, in driveways and in the middle of bustling residential communities.

On a freezing, snowy Wednesday three weeks before Christmas 2002, a 1974 Cessna 210L came down on a northern Arkansas neighborhood just before dinnertime.

"I ran outside, and pieces of airplane were falling down all around the house," said Danny Saunier, a fiberglass assembler who was sitting in his living room when he heard the boom. "The entire wing fell into a tree in my neighbor's backyard, maybe 50 feet from me. . You could smell the airline fuel all over. The pilot's headset, it was right beside my house."

Somehow, a larger tragedy was averted that day in Harrison, about 140 miles upstate from Little Rock, when the pilot crashed while carrying canceled checks and other bank documents for Orlando-based Flight Express Inc.

"If it would have been in the afternoon or when school was out, there would have been kids all over the place outside," Saunier said. "It's just fortunate at the time no one was outside. Three houses down, one of the seats of the plane landed on the roof."

Air cargo's alarming history of near misses -- and with it potentially larger death tolls -- was documented in a Miami Herald review of every fatal U.S. cargo crash since 2000.

Nearly one of every five involved planes coming down near homes, business centers or people, the newspaper found. Many others fell on approach to runways, meaning they, too, could have caused death on the ground had they veered before crashing.

A cargo plane can do extensive damage. Some carry hazardous materials.

In 2003, Emery Worldwide Airlines was fined $6 million after pleading guilty in Ohio to 12 counts of failing to provide written notice to its flight crews that it carried hazardous cargo in 1998 and 1999.

The materials on board: explosives, radioactive materials and flammable gas and liquid. Pilots in command had no clue the hazards were on board as they traveled state to state, the government said.

In South Carolina and Ohio in 2002, other companies were fined for trying to ship flammable liquids and corrosives, the packages halted only when ground handling employees discovered leaking boxes.

In fact, the National Transportation Safety Board will hold a two-day hearing starting Wednesday to examine safety issues involving transporting hazardous cargo such as lithium batteries. The session is being held in the wake of a fire aboard a UPS DC-8 in Philadelphia in February.

Despite these dangers, the industry's accident record, and its potentially more far-reaching perils on the ground, have received relatively scant public notice.

LOW PUBLIC PROFILE

"Normally it doesn't get the attention in the news media because there are no passengers involved," said Bart Crotty, a former Federal Aviation Administration inspector who is now an aviation consultant. "Now if he hits a school building or an old-folks home or a church or a synagogue or a mosque, then it would mean something."

"And the FAA is just not riding herd on them," he said.

Advocates fear the only way the FAA will boost oversight is if a cargo plane falls with heavy casualties on the ground. It has nearly happened several times.

In June 2005, an aged DC-3 cargo plane operated by Air Pony Express crashed on a residential Fort Lauderdale street, damaging roofs and scattering debris in driveways, but taking no lives as its wreckage and fuel settled just yards from homes along Northeast 56th Street.

"Shortly after the takeoff, the controller at the Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport tower advised the crew that they observed smoke coming from the left engine," the NTSB wrote. "Witnesses on the ground stated they observed smoke coming from the accident airplane, and several cars . were found with oil residue on them."

The landing was described as a miracle, but prosecutors now say the flight was criminal. In April, the U.S. attorney brought a 20-count indictment against pilot Charles Riggs, 63, with 19 charges of operating the aircraft illegally and one of failing to file a required U.S. Customs form.

The pilot maintains his innocence, but prosecutors say the near disaster was a "bandit" flight for profit, with Riggs hauling 3,200 pounds of granite to the Bahamas.

On Aug. 1, 2001, a Bankair Inc. Mitsubishi MU-2 turboprop crashed on the 14th fairway of a golf course in Hilton Head, S.C. Pilot Arie Knoester, 50, was killed, but no one else was hurt just before 8 that morning.

The NTSB cited "improper maintenance" as triggering the "uncontrolled roll, a descent, and an impact with a tree."

"Certainly everybody's goal is zero accidents," said Jeanne Cook, the chief pilot for South Carolina-based Bankair. "I think every operator strives for the maximum level of safety, because the pilot and the aircraft are recognized as assets."

On Aug. 13, 2004, in Kentucky, an Air Tahoma Convair 580 crashed after midnight near the eighth green at the World of Sports golf course, killing copilot Michael Ray Gelwicks. The pilot survived.

The NTSB ruled in May that the plane, operating as a cargo flight for DHL Express, fell from the sky because of "fuel starvation resulting from the captain's decision not to follow approved fuel crossfeed procedures."

Such tragedies occur when "time-tested procedures are not respected," wrote Acting NTSB Chairman Mark V. Rosenker.

OTHER INCIDENTS

In Texas in 2002 and Maryland in 2004, cargo planes crashed in neighborhoods, killing pilots but causing no casualties on the ground. Across the nation, other cargo planes came down near people and buildings, killing the pilots but no one else:

. American Check Transport crash in Idaho, February 2000: As he flew over a residential subdivision, the veteran pilot radioed: "I just had two flameouts. I'm goin' in."

The Mitsubishi MU-2, coughing white smoke from its left engine, passed in front of a witness' house "just barely over the power lines" before crashing east of the airport in Lewiston.

. Superior Aviation crash in Indiana, November 2000: A Swearingen SA-226-TC carrying canceled checks crashed after takeoff from Fort Wayne International Airport.

A witness watching TV at 1:25 a.m. heard "a very low-flying aircraft come directly over my house. ... It sounded very revved up like a chain saw cutting through a tree at high speed. Several seconds later I heard a fairly loud thumping noise," NTSB records show.

Advocates say the tragedies are a sign that when a cargo plane falls, the impact goes beyond one death.

"Cargo is not just boxes," the Air Line Pilots Association wrote in a failed 2004 reform push. "Shipments of cargo contain ... things like medical supplies, biopsies awaiting testing, parts to keep businesses and factories open, large sums of money, etc. In short, the loss of a cargo aircraft has the potential to impact the lives of people in much the same way that the loss of a passenger aircraft does."