Pilot identified in fatal plane crash

RAVENSWOOD - A pilot killed when a private plane crashed Thursday night in Jackson County flew passengers to and from Nebraska and Indiana twice a week, a Nebraska airport manager said.

William Huff, 61, of Indiana died when his four-seat Cirrus SR22 crashed around 10 p.m. Thursday on a farm along Skull Run Road off West Virginia 68 in northern Jackson County, Sgt. Michael Baylous of the West Virginia State Police said.

Huff had departed the York (Neb.) Municipal Airport Thursday afternoon for the Eagle Creek Airpark in Indiana, about 10 miles from Indianapolis. Officials said something happened on the way to Indiana and air traffic controllers lost radio contact with Huff. He went off his flight plan, causing the Federal Aviation Administration to notify the military, which scrambled two jets to intercept the aircraft.

The plane may have run out of fuel over Jackson County, according to the FAA.

Huff flew for a company that owned the aircraft and would fly into York Municipal on Mondays, pick up several passengers, and fly them to Indiana, said Randy Hall, airport operations manager at York. He returned on Thursdays with the passengers, Hall said.

"He flew in, dropped off two people, then headed back," Hall said, describing what he knew of Huff's activities on Thursday.

Hall said he knew Huff for about a year and described him as a personable fellow, "but I didn't really know him that well," he said.

The aircraft was registered to Sequoia Airways of Avon, Ind. Sequoia Airways is part of the Sequoia Consulting Group, according to a man who answered the telephone at the Avon office. The newspaper's inquiries were referred to a spokesman, who was unavailable, the man said.

The crash site was closed Friday while investigators, including state police, the West Virginia State Medical Examiner's Office and representatives of the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board, looked for evidence.

Investigators also will examine radar data, voice communication data and maintenance records as part of the investigation, said Brian Rayner, a senior air safety investigator with the NTSB from Ashburn, Va. Rayner arrived at the site Friday afternoon and said additional investigators and representatives from the manufacturers of the plane and its powerplant were also coming.

"We're hoping to find evidence that will suggest what may have caused this accident, but right now we're in the data-gathering phase," Rayner said just prior to making his first visit to the crash site.

Rayner said investigations are divided into three parts: the pilot, the machine and environment. Investigators will be looking at the machine as it was found and check on its maintenance history. The plane was of recent manufacture, having been built in 2008, he said.

Investigators will also look at the pilot's history, certifications and experience. The environment will include air traffic environment, weather and the physical environment at the site, he said.

While preliminary indications point to possible problems with the pilot, Rayner said the next couple of days will be spent documenting and gathering an inventory of the wreckage at the site. The purpose of that is to make sure it is all present and doesn't show any indications of any parts separating from the plane while it was in flight. Investigators will also examine those components for any suggestions of pre-impact anomalies or malfunctions.

"If we were to come across something like that, we would then move that component to another facility or possibly the lab in Washington for a detailed examination by experts," he said.

After Huff, who was alone in the plane, failed to land at Eagle Creek and did not respond to radio calls from air traffic controllers, the FAA contacted the North American Aerospace Defense Command.

Two F-16s were scrambled and the fighter pilots who intercepted the plane attempted to make contact with the pilot, NORAD spokesman Mike Kucharek said. They saw the pilot in the plane and determined he was unconscious, Kucharek said.

The pilots, who remained with the aircraft until it crashed, "visually could determine he was unconscious," he said.

The last communication between Huff and air traffic controllers was about 7:25 p.m., according to Laura Brown, a spokesman for the FAA. The pilot asked to descend and then the communications were garbled, she said.

An emergency was declared 25 minutes after the loss of radio contact when NORAD was notified. Planes which go off flight plans or the pilots don't make radio contact "generally get the attention of the federal security partners," Kucharek said.

"He diverted from his original flight plan," Kucharek said.

Arlene Salac, an FAA spokesman, Thursday night said the plane may have run out of fuel. The aircraft's maximum distance is about 1,100 nautical miles, according to the manufacturer. York is about 850 miles from the site of the crash in Jackson County.

A concern was whether the plane upon running out of fuel would crash into a populated area, Kucharek said.

Residents Thursday night reported hearing jets and rumblings. Monica Miller, a manager at the Riverside Campground in Sherman, about a half-mile from the crash scene, said she and her husband heard a rumble and the sound of jets.

"Then it was silence, then the sound of the jets," she said.

Her daughter in Washington, W.Va., heard a screeching noise, Miller said.

State police were the first on the scene and remained there through the night, a spokesman said. Officers cordoned off the area, she said.

Huff is at least the ninth person killed in a plane crash in West Virginia this year.