IRENE, S.D. (KCAU) — The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has released its preliminary report on the deadly plane crash in Yankton County.
The crash happened on the morning of July 31. The Yankton County Sheriff’s Office said at the time that first responders were called around 7:48 a.m. to a plane crash in a bean field about three miles southwest of Irene. Responders arrived to the scene and found one person dead.
On Aug. 2, the sheriff’s office identified the victim of the crash as Charles Lawrence Schneider, 67, of Sioux Falls.
The NTSB preliminary report states that the plane, a Piper PA-28-180, was destroyed on July 31 around 7:20 a.m. when it crashed with the pilot being fatally injured. No flight plan had been filed, and the pilot wasn’t in contact with air traffic control, the report states.
The plane left from Joe Foss Field Airport in Sioux Falls and was heading to Chan Gurney Municipal Airport in Yankton for maintenance. There was a quarter statute mile of visibility and fog with ceilings broken at 200 feet and overcast at 1,900 feet.
The plane took off from Sioux Falls at 7:01 a.m. with a predominant path heading southwest at 3,700 feet. At 7:18 a.m. the plane started to descend until the last recorded data point of 7:20:52. The last data point was about 400 feet east of where the plane was found, in a field pointing south and about 100 feet west of a north-south gravel road.
After the plane crashed, the report states that the plane caught on fire, consuming the cockpit and a front part of the plane. The left wing was still intact but the right wing had been separated. A majority of the right wing was found near the wreckage. Four feet of the outboard right wing was found across the road. The preliminary report states that this part had a “semi-circular dent in the leading edge consistent with a tree strike.”
After an examination, the NTSB states there were no anomalies found with the engine while the propeller had damage “consistent with power production at the time of impact.” Additionally, the NTSB investigator looked at flight control to the extent they could considering the condition of the plane wreckage. All flight control cables were properly attached other that a single break in the aileron drive control cable. “The break was consistent with overload damage,” the report states.
Read NTSB’s full preliminary report below.
