NTSB report on OSU crash says pilot error

Wednesday, January 22nd 2003, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

The NTSB has released the final report on the plane crash that killed ten men associated with the OSU basketball team nearly two years ago. In the report, he Board cites pilot error as the cause of the crash.

It's a milestone many people have anticipated, especially the families of the ten men lost in the flight. No one is more aware of the consequences of going up in that plane than Kathryn Wilson, the daughter of Denver Mills, the man who piloted the plane, and who's held at least partially responsible for the crash by the NTSB and others.

Kathryn Wilson: "Watching people blame him for this is very hard. It's very hard to see blame put on someone who was your hero for thirty years. I believe that saying that my dad could have landed that plane is the equivalent of telling me that my car driving down the interstate should have been able to stay on the road if it lost all of its wheels."

"Nobody wanted this to happen, it's just a combination of things that were not done that caused the crash and I think there were a lot of parties that had a lot to do with that, but the bottom line is that we are-- with this report, it kind of validates our findings and helps us to move forward with our mission, which is to go to trial if need be to find those people accountable."

Zane Fleming says the last two years without his son Nate have been a difficult journey, but says the report's conclusion that human error was the determining factor in the crash comes as welcome news.

Zane Fleming: "All along I've said that all these men were innocent. All they did was to get on a plane they were told to get on. It didn't have to happen. If more care had been used as far as background checks on the aircraft itself, then probably they wouldn't have gone up in that plane and they'd be with us now."

The Flemings are one of five families suing over the crash.

The estate of Denver Mills is one of the defendants named in those suits.

The Mills family claims Denver did all he could to land the plane safely and says this is just one more step in ultimately exonerating him.

The pre-trial hearings for those lawsuits are scheduled to take place sometime in April.