Three die in Dartmouth plane crash
DARTMOUTH -- A single-engine corporate airplane attempting to land at New Bedford Regional Airport last night in rain and fog plummeted into a wooded grove, killing all three passengers on board, authorities said.
The plane went down around 7:45 p.m. as the pilot tried to make an instruments-only landing, a technique used in bad weather, authorities said. Runway lights, which are one component of the instrument landing system that pilots rely on, were not operating at the time.
The plane missed its first approach to the runway and circled the airport to attempt a second landing, authorities said. The aircraft then crashed about 3 miles west of the New Bedford airport just over the Dartmouth line.
"The weather tonight is extremely difficult," said Mayor Scott Lang. "Other than that, no one has any idea what caused this. It's completely premature to speculate about any cause."
Lang said that the runway lights were not operating because his administration was in the midst of a plan to cut away heavy vegetation that had been obscuring the lights for years. The FAA had turned the lights off in August because they could not be seen and were useless.
Local authorities said there was no evidence last night that the nonfunctioning lights played any role in the crash, but some pilots said that making an instrument landing without those lights would require a higher level of skill.
The plane was a Socata TBM 700 registered to PK Leasing LLC in Allentown, Pa. Officials did not identify the three victims last night, but said they were all from out of state.
Lang said he met with Federal Aviation Administration officials on Jan. 5 to request that the instrument landing system, or ILS, be turned back on and was told that could not happen until the vegetation was cut away, a task he estimated would cost about $300,000. Plans were put on hold because the airport was located in a protected wetlands.
"We recommended the [New Bedford] airport commission go to the local conservation commission to get an emergency permit to cut back vegetation," said Jim Peters , a spokesman for the FAA, which is in charge of maintaining ILS, while the airport is in charge of vegetation issues. "They needed permit because it was in wetlands."
Peters said that pilots could still make bad-weather landings without the lights and that the FAA publicized to all pilots that the ILS lights were turned off. Lang, who was elected in November 2005, said that "since the issue was brought to my attention, we've been working on a plan to cut the vegetation."
Lang confirmed that the runway lights that were part of New Bedford Regional's ILS were off at the time of the crash. The lights extend from the end of the runway 2,400 feet down each side of the strip. The plane's pilot should have been aware that the lights were not operating, the FAA said.
In addition to the lights, the ILS also sends pilots radio signals informing them of their vertical and lateral position in relation to the runway, so they can land even if fog, rain or snow block their view. There was no evidence last night that the radio part of the system was inoperative.
Norman Komich , a retired US Airways pilot, said airline pilots were not allowed to land if ILS runway edge lights are not operating.
"Without the lights, it would really disrupt your depth perception during a landing," he said, adding that such a landing "would require a higher level of skill for pilots."
John Hansman , a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor of aeronautics, said that another factor to consider was that icing could have made the plane uncontrollable.
FAA and National Transportation Safety Board officials were expected to arrive on scene today.
According to the National Weather Service, visibility in New Bedford was about 1 mile at the time of the crash and dropped to a half-mile shortly afterward, with rain and fog reported in the area.
"It wasn't a totally bad night [to fly]; it wasn't a great night," said National Weather Service meteorologist Eleanor Vallier-Talbot , who said the conditions were reported on the weather service's updated aviation forecast for the evening. "Pilots monitoring this should have been aware there would reduced visibility."
She said the clouds last night were just 200 feet off the ground, an unusually low height.
Gary Marcum , who was staying at a nearby hotel, said: "I heard him before I could see him. He was way too low. The visibility wasn't too good. He couldn't have been more than 400 feet off the ground."
Police, fire, and State Police units from New Bedford and surrounding cities rushed to the scene just after an emergency call came in from the New Bedford air control tower. After the deaths were announced, prosecutors from the Bristol district attorney's office went to the scene.
Firefighters had difficulty finding the plane in the woods and eventually found it by following the smell of aviation fuel to the wreckage, said Dartmouth Fire Chief Richard Arruda.
"It was in very rough, wooded, swampy terrain," said Richard Bunker , an inspector with the Massachusetts Aeronautics Commission, who said the plane was severely mangled.
Much of the air traffic to Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard originates at New Bedford Regional. There have not been any accidents reported there in the last five years.
Matthew Brelis of the Globe staff contributed to this report. 
