NTSB Report Released In Jenks Plane Crash

Newson6.com

UNDATED -- The National Transportation Safety Board blames pilot error for a 2007 airplane crash near Jenks that killed the pilot's wife and father.

The NTSB has released its Probable Cause Report on the crash.  

The crash happened on evening of November 27^th, 2007 near 81^st and Elwood.  

The pilot, a Little Rock Police officer named Rick Musticchi, had bought the plane earlier in the day, and was returning home to Little Rock with his wife, Patricia, and father, Thomas.

According to the NTSB, the single-engine Cessna 210 had just taken off from Jones Riverside airport when the plane lost electrical power.

At 6:15 p.m., while the pilot was attempting to return to the airport, the plane struck a tree then a wire or cable from a high voltage power line near the end of the runway.

In its final report on the crash, NTSB investigators describe how they discovered that the main wire leading from the plane's alternator had separated, which would explain why the airplane lost electrical power.

In a previous report, Musticchi told investigators the power line's poles should have been illuminated. 

He told them the "accident could have been prevented if the poles had been lighted so he could have identified them as an obstacle and avoided them."

But in its report, the NTSB blames the crash on the pilot's "failure to maintain clearance from the power transmission line(s)." 

It cites as contributing factors the plane's loss of electrical power, the pilot's diverted attention and darkness.

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