ratonrange.com wrote:Four die in crash of small plane; Investigators eyeing windy conditions at county airport
By Todd Wildermuth, Editor
Tue, Mar 05, 2013

Strong winds are being cited by New Mexico State Police as a potential factor in the Sunday afternoon crash of a small plane that left all four of its occupants dead moments after taking off from the Colfax County airport at Angel Fire.

Investigators from the state Office of the Medical Investigator and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) were at the crash scene Monday morning, according to State Police spokesman Tony Lynn.

The plane’s pilot and passengers were all from Texas, according to Lynn, who added they may have been from San Antonio. He based that on the fact he has been receiving a lot of media inquiries from that area regarding the crash.

State police reported those killed in the crash as pilot John Phillip Verhalen III, 33; Sara Verhalen, 41, sister of the pilot; Chloe Marie Jameson, 13, daughter of Sara Verhalen; and Jennifer Woodward, 26, girlfriend of the pilot.

The Verhalens may have had connections to Angel Fire. A May 2012 posting on the website http://www.angelfirenm.com lists a Hope and Peter Verhalen as participants in the community’s “Spring Clean-Up Day.”

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) records show the plane that crashed was a Mooney M20E fixed-wing, single-engine, four-seat aircraft that was manufactured in 1966. It’s owner was registered as Verhalen Flyers LLC located in Scottsville, Texas, which is in northeast Texas about 15 miles from the Louisiana border. A George Verhalen owns and manages the private Verhalen Airport in Scottsville, according to online airport records, which also indicate a Verhalen-run charter flight service operates from the Scottsville airport. A San Antonio television station reported Sunday that the Verhalen family was from Scottsville, but some members of the family had recently moved to San Antonio for work reasons.

According to the FAA, the crash occurred Sunday at 1:24 p.m. shortly after takeoff and the plane burned after impacting the ground. FFA Mid-States Public Affairs Manager Lynn Lunsford said the flight’s destination was unknown to the FAA as of early Monday morning.

“Winds at the time of the crash were strong and gusty. Investigators will determine whether this played a role in the accident,” Lunsford said in an e-mail to The Range Monday, adding that FAA investigators were on the way to the crash site, but the NTSB is in charge of the investigation.

New Mexico State Police were called to respond to the crash at 1:28 p.m. Sunday and were assisting in the investigation, State Police spokesman Lynn said. In a brief news release following the crash, state police said they believe that “due to strong winds the aircraft went down.”

The Sangre de Cristo Chronicle, an Angel Fire newspaper, reported the plane crashed about 500 yards from the end of the runway, with the wreckage ending up near N.M. 434, a highway just outside the airport grounds.

NTSB Public Affairs spokesman Eric Weiss said the NTSB has information that includes witnesses reporting the plane to be in a normal, “controlled” flight immediately after lifting off from the runway, but then deviating into the crash.

Weiss said the NTSB investigator assigned to the case will likely spend two to three days at the crash site and then, within a week or so, issue a brief preliminary report documenting the wreckage. What is called the “factual report” outlining the facts — as determined by “in-depth” investigation of “the man (pilot), the machine, the environment” — will usually take 12 to 18 months, Weiss said, adding that a final “probable cause” report on the crash would be issued after that.

NTSB records show Sunday’s crash to be the first fatal plane crash at or around the Angel Fire airport since May 2002 when a plane crashed into a mountain about 10 miles northeast of the airport. Since the airport opened in the early 1980s, NTSB records show five fatal crashes having occurred at or in the vicinity of the airport. Most of those crashes have NTSB probable-cause findings that include pilot error involving not allowing enough speed and time during takeoff for the plane to climb high enough to get over the mountains surrounding the airport.

Online airport records list the airport at 8,380 feet in elevation. The Colfax County website says the airport is the fifth highest in the country.

The last previous crash of any sort at the Angel Fire airport recorded in NTSB records was on Jan. 15, 2012, when a plane veered abruptly and started to sink during an initial takeoff climb, causing the pilot to abort takeoff and bring the plane to the ground, where it rolled through snow and its landing gear collapsed, leaving the four people aboard the plan with minor or no injuries. The NTSB report noted that strong winds were present at the time and may have been a factor in that crash.