The pilot of the aircraft that crashed in the Atlantic Ocean near Quogue on October 13, killing all three people aboard, reported having “unreliable” instruments that made him unable to operate the plane during the cloudy flight, the National Transportation Safety Board’s preliminary report revealed this week.The report stated that no flight plan was filed for the instructional flight. It also stated that poor visibility prevailed along the route of the flight, so the pilot needed to use his flight instruments to navigate the aircraft, as other aircraft in the area were doing, instead of using visual, external cues. However, not long after departing from Danbury Municipal Airport in Connecticut, the pilot reported to air traffic control that he planned to climb higher in order to find clearer weather conditions. He did so after requesting visual flight rules, meaning he would fly with visual cues rather than instruments.The pilot, Munidat “Raj” Persaud of Westbury, Connecticut, indicated a climb to 8,500 feet mean sea level, but he quickly ascended to 15,700 feet and reported “trying to maintain VMC,” or visual meteorological conditions. That was when he said his attitude indicator—an instrument that informs the pilot about the aircraft’s orientation—was “unreliable,” according to the report.At that point, the controller, Boston Air Route Traffic Control Center, declared an emergency for the airplane and proposed he head toward Westchester County Airport, which reported good visibility. Mr. Persaud instead remained on his route and decided to fly to the top of the clouds, at 19,000 feet, to fly with visual flight rules. He then requested routes to areas with clear visibility. Two minutes after reaching that altitude, just 30 minutes into the flight, the plane broke apart and plunged toward the ocean, according to the report. Radio and radar contact was soon lost.“A witness near the accident site reported seeing the airplane ‘nosedive’ from out of the clouds and into the ocean after hearing the engine ‘throttle up severely and wind back down’ several times,” the NTSB report stated, adding that a second witness saw “two large pieces of the airplane descending from the sky.”The NTSB could not provide the reason why the plane broke apart, but the board is planning to look into the cause as part of the full investigation, its public affairs officer Terry Williams said. The small civilian aircraft was on its way to Charleston Executive Airport in Charleston, South Carolina. The pilot, along with two others aboard the plane, Jennifer Landrum, 45, of Augusta, Georgia, and Richard Terbrusch, 53, of Ridgefield, Connecticut, were all killed in the crash.
27east on Oct 26, 2018