Posted on Thu, Jun. 06, 2002

MO - Carnahan crash blamed on weather, malfunctioning instrument

By MATT STEARNS The Kansas City Star

The malfunction of a key part and bad weather led to pilot disorientation, causing the plane crash that killed Gov. Mel Carnahan, his son and an aide in October 2000, federal investigators announced Wednesday.

In its final report on the crash, the National Transportation Safety Board said that the plane's primary attitude indicator -- which helps pilots fly in bad weather -- failed. That failure, along with the stormy weather the night of the crash, led the plane's pilot, Roger "Randy" Carnahan, to lose control of the plane because of "spatial disorientation," the report concluded.

Randy Carnahan, the governor's son, and Chris Sifford, a top aide to the governor, also died in the crash, which occurred about 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 16, 2000, south of St. Louis. The three men were flying from a St. Louis fund-raiser to a campaign event in southern Missouri, where the governor was to deliver a speech as part of his race for the U.S. Senate against incumbent Sen. John Ashcroft.

The safety board's report concludes a 19-month investigation into the crash during which investigators compiled and released thousands of pages of documents.

Debate about the responsibility for the crash will now shift to the courts. The Carnahan and Sifford families filed wrongful death lawsuits in Jackson County Circuit Court about two months after the crash, saying that mechanical failure caused the crash. Defendants in the case have said in court filings that Randy Carnahan's negligence as a pilot caused the crash.

"It is very significant that the NTSB found no pilot error," said Gary C. Robb, an attorney who is representing the Carnahan family in the lawsuits.

The plane, a Cessna 335 owned by Randy Carnahan's law firm, encountered difficulties shortly after it took off from a suburban St. Louis airport en route to New Madrid, Mo.

Randy Carnahan reported problems with the primary attitude indicator in the minutes before the crash. The instrument, also known as an artificial horizon, tells a pilot whether the plane is banking and whether the nose is high or low.

"The unmistakable conclusion is that a part failed," Robb said. "You can blame weather, you can blame rain, you can blame fog. But this instrument is essential to flying in bad weather. You need this instrument to fly in foggy, rainy conditions. ... The failure of that instrument caused him to become disoriented. You can trace it all back. ... This part, if it worked, the weather would be irrelevant."

The safety board's report said that other instruments in the cockpit would have helped Randy Carnahan control the plane. For example, there is another attitude indicator on the right side of the cockpit that pilots are trained to use if the primary attitude indicator fails. The safety board's report said that the right-side attitude indicator was "functioning properly" at the time of the crash.

"However, the right-side attitude indicator was not large and would have been several feet to the right of the pilot," the report said. "Therefore, using the right-side attitude indicator would have resulted in the pilot making frequent, rapid head movements to cross-check that instrument with the other instruments. The pilot's head movements most likely caused him to experience spatial disorientation."

The rain and turbulence that night "would have made it more difficult to control the airplane with failed instrumentation, both of which would likely have exacerbated the pilot's spatial disorientation," the report said.

The manufacturer of the primary attitude indicator, Sigma Tek, is based in Augusta, Kan., and is a defendant in the lawsuits. The firm's president, Bob Castleberry, and its attorney, Thomas A. Hamill, did not return calls seeking comment.

A focus of the lawsuits is the vacuum pump system that helps control the attitude indicator. The manufacturer of the system, Ohio-based Parker Hannifin Corp., had issued an advisory on the pump system just two weeks before the crash. The safety board's report said work was done on the pump system in the month before the crash. Carnahan's mechanic told the safety board "the pumps operated normally."

The report found the pumps "were most likely functioning at the time of impact."

"The bottom line for us is it seems very clear from the NTSB report that none of Parker's components contributed to the crash," said Lorrie Crum, a Parker Hannifin spokeswoman. "It's consistent with what we knew of the accident."

Nevertheless, the report goes on to say that "the investigation could not determine the cause of the failure" of the primary attitude indicator.

"There's only one possible explanation," Robb said. "Not enough vacuum" due to a pump failure. Robb said he had no plans to drop Parker Hannifin as a defendant in the civil suit.

Crum said Robb's assertion "does not warrant a response."

Defendants in the civil lawsuits have said Randy Carnahan should have known better than to fly in the bad weather of Oct. 16 and so caused the crash by his own negligence.

But the safety board's report said that Carnahan was instrument-rated, and that "he had been known to cancel trips when the weather conditions were unfavorable."

The crash precipitated an extraordinary series of events. Carnahan was running for the U.S. Senate against incumbent Republican John Ashcroft when he died. After the crash, Ashcroft suspended his campaign for several days, while the massive outpouring of grief for Carnahan gave his campaign a boost in the closing days of what had been a tight race between the longtime adversaries.

Carnahan defeated Ashcroft on Election Day, and then-Gov. Roger Wilson appointed Carnahan's widow, Jean Carnahan, to the seat. Ashcroft was appointed U.S. attorney general by President Bush.

Jean Carnahan is running to complete her late husband's full term this fall.

In a statement issued through Robb, the Carnahan family expressed "heartfelt appreciation to the dedicated members of the NTSB team for their efforts in investigating this tragedy."

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