Mokuleia crash death toll now at 11; Same plane spun toward ground in 2016 over California

The death toll from Friday night’s fiery crash of a twin-engine Beechcraft BE65 on Oahu’s North Shore has risen to 11 victims.

The Honolulu Police Department reported that the dead included three men — ages 27, 28 and 29; two women — ages 26 and 27, and six males whose ages were not released. HPD said there were no survivors.

Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said this morning that it could take the National Transportation Safety Board more than a year to determine a probable cause of the crash.

Two FAA inspectors were at Mokuleia Friday night after the Beechcraft crashed under unknown circumstances while taking off from Dillingham Airfield for a sunset skydive, killing everyone aboard.

Three years ago, the same Beechcraft experienced “aircraft structural failure” in a skydiving-related mishap over a California parachute jump site, according to the NTSB.

On July 23, 2016, the unidentified, male pilot of the Beechcraft was carrying a total of 15 people to a jump site over Byron, Calif. As the plane set up for the jump, the plane stalled, rolled left and began rotating toward the ground, according to the NTSB’s “aviation accident final report” of the incident.

The pilot got the plane back to “a wings-level attitude” as “the airplane’s airspeed increased rapidly,” according to the report.

A parachute jumper sitting in the co-pilot’s seat heard a “loud bang” as the pilot struggled to regain control.

Then the plane stalled and went into another spin.

“During the second spin event, all the jumpers successfully egressed,” according to the report. “After about nine rotations, the pilot recovered the airplane to wings- and pitch-level attitude, and shortly thereafter, it broke off to the left and stalled and rotated downward again. The pilot recovered the airplane again and flew back to the airport because the airplane was handling abnormally, and he landed it without further incident.”

A witness on the ground noted that the plane’s right horizontal stabilizer and elevator were missing and were subsequently discovered in a field “a few miles south of the airport,” according to the NTSB.

All of the “fracture surfaces on the right horizontal stabilizer, elevator, and attachment bracket were consistent with overstress separations, which was likely the source of the loud band heard by the jumper during the recover sequence,” according to the NTSB.

The NTSB blamed the incident on the pilot’s failure to follow a proper “spin recovery procedure.”

Specifically, the NTSB said the probable cause of the accident was: “The pilot’s failure to maintain an adequate airspeed and his exceedance of the airplane’s critical angle of attack, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall and subsequent spin. Also causal to the accident was the pilot’s failure to follow prescribed spin recovery procedures, which resulted in increased airspeed and airflow and the subsequent overstress separation of the right horizontal stabilizer. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s inadequate preflight weight and balance calculations, which resulted in the center of gravity being aft of the limit.”

Honolulu police closed Farrington Highway in both directions fronting Dillingham Airfield for several hours Friday evening and reopened the roads to traffic this morning.