By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – The cause of the airplane crash that killed three people with the Chehalis eye surgery clinic three weeks ago likely won’t be known for sure until late next year, a National Transportation Safety Board investigator said today.
Wayne Pollack, a senior air safety investigator with the NTSB’s Western Pacific Region, said the final report won’t come until after the examination of some of the Cessna wreckage’s components which are being shipped to lab and manufacturer personnel around the country.
“There’s a lot of work that has to go on on this,” Pollack said this afternoon.
The six-seater Cessna 340A was recovered four days after it went down some nine miles northeast of Morton. Pacific Cataract and Laser Institute employees Dr. Paul Shenk and Rod Rinta were traveling from the Chehalis-Centralia Airport to Lewiston, Idaho the morning of Oct. 25 when their pilot Ken Sabin reported one engine was down and then radio contact was lost.
The initial findings suggest the front of the plane was pointed downward when it hit, according to Pollack.
“The evidence indicated the aircraft descended in a ‘nose-low’ attitude,” he said.
He said the impact was such that parts of the aircraft were actually buried in the ground.
The impact crater was five feet deep and they found portions of the forward fuselage, cockpit and engine underground, he said. Hundreds of components were scattered around the site, he said.
The remote site, accessed off state Route 7, was described as in a dense patch of young planted trees across a hillside and a ravine at an elevation of about 3,500 feet. It was a foot hike of about 350 feet up rough terrain for personnel from the sheriff’s office, coroner’s office, search and rescue and the NTSB.
The recovered portions of the plane were reassembled in a facility in Seattle in what Pollack described as a “wreckage layout”.
His investigation is now in the shipment phase for further examination to locations, including the NTSB’s lab in Washington D.C.
•••
Read previous news story about the plane crash here
Tags: By Sharyn L. Decker, news reporter