Mourners search for answers from Friday’s fiery plane crash in Mokuleia

The death toll on Saturday rose to 11 from the fiery crash of an aircraft that took off on a sunset skydive flight in Mokuleia and became one of Hawaii’s deadliest civilian aviation disasters.

According to officials, the twin-engine Beechcraft BE65-A90 operated by Oahu Parachute Center was engulfed in flames where it crashed on the Dillingham Airfield fence line Friday. An initial report indicated nine crewmembers and passengers were aboard with no survivors.

A tearful Erica Budge added flowers Saturday to a growing memorial on the fence near the site and then knelt in front of the shrine for several emotional moments before addressing local and national news agencies.

Budge, who worked next door to Oahu Parachute Center, said she knew many of the victims and learned of their deaths Friday via a text message.

She visited the site because “it just wasn’t quite real until I saw it. I’m kind of numb. Shocked.”

“A tragedy like this makes everyone stop and pause and be grateful for what we have,” Budge said. “These people loved what they did and believed in what they did. They were really, really wonderful people. They were really happy. They were living the dream.”

The Honolulu Police Department said the dead included three men, ages 27, 28 and 29; two women, ages 26 and 27; and six males, whose ages were not released.

“It’s now confirmed that 11 people died in the terrible crash at Dillingham Airfield. Our hearts ache for the families and friends of the victims during this very difficult time,” Mayor Kirk Caldwell wrote in a Tweet.

Jessica Lani Rich, president and CEO of the Visitor Aloha Society of Hawaii, said the nonprofit was notified that visitors were among those who perished in the crash. She said VASH was invited to a briefing today with the Honolulu Medical Examiner’s Office and officials from the National Transportation Safety Board.

“This is a tragic incident that not only involves visitors but our local community,” Rich said. “Once we get confirmation of the names of those that died and the contact information of their families, we’ll reach out. We’re specialists in dealing with visitors in crisis and we plan to do everything that we can to assist them.”

Anna Elkins posted on Facebook that her husband, Larry Lemaster, an Army veteran and instructor at Oahu Parachute Center with more than 8,000 jumps, was on the plane. She said her son had lost his father.

“I don’t have an explanation for the utter tragedy that has happened,” she wrote. “But Larry Lemaster would never want one person to waste a single minute of their life mourning his. He was doing what he loved.”

Investigation begins

NTSB spokesman Keith Holloway said a team of investigators was en route and likely would be on the ground in Hawaii today. The team is expected to spend three to four days at the crash site, then issue a preliminary report in 10 days to a “couple of weeks” after it leaves Hawaii, Holloway said.

“It typically takes the NTSB a year or more to determine a probable cause of an accident” following the NTSB’s preliminary report, said Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor.

The plane that crashed Friday had experienced “aircraft structural failure” during a 2016 skydiving accident over Byron, Calif., according to the NTSB.

Asked why the plane was allowed to fly again in Hawaii, Gregor wrote in an email to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that “the maintenance/repair history of the aircraft will be part of the accident investigation.”

Two FAA inspectors were at Mokuleia Friday night after the Beechcraft crashed.

The crash was the worst that Honolulu Fire Chief Manuel Neves had seen in his career, he told reporters Friday.

Many on Oahu said they could empathize with the sorrow felt among Hawaii’s skydiving community. People like Michael Lyons, a 68-year-old member of the North Shore Neighborhood Board, said he was affected even though he does not skydive. Some of the Oahu Parachute Center employees killed in the crash lived in neighboring Haleiwa.

“I have some good friends that work out there (Dillingham Airfield),” Lyons said. “It’s just devastating being in a small community where everybody mostly knows everybody. Everybody’s hurting, even the people who were not there.”

Robert Zutter draped lei at a makeshift memorial to the 11 victims.

Zutter, who used to run a food truck at Dillingham Airfield, said he knew five of the employees of Oahu Parachute Center who died Friday.

“I fed all the guys,” Zutter said. “I was pretty much their private chef. They were all really good people — fun loving and welcoming to outsiders and people that were new to the island. The skydiving community on Oahu is a very tight group. They were part of that.”

Zutter hoped the dead would be remembered as “guys that lived every day to the fullest.”

“They were adventurers and thrill-seekers,” he said.

“Two of them were out scuba diving and free diving just hours before the flight,” he said. “They were pretty extreme. I admired that in these guys. They knew they were taking risks, but they loved the thrill of it.”

Zutter estimated there are a few hundred people involved in skydiving on Oahu. Some gathered at the crash site on Saturday while others likely mourned in private, he said.

“This could happen to any of us,” Zutter said. “But this is definitely one of the worst incidents in recent years.”

At some point, Zutter said he expects the skydiving community will plan an organized memorial at one of Oahu’s beaches.

“Usually when we’ve had past friends pass away due to skydiving, we paddle out on our boards and then have an airplane fly by and drop flowers in the water,” Zutter said.

‘There was nothing left’

Gayle and Rick Syverson of Waialua said they were out walking their dog Friday at the beach park near Dillingham Airfield when they heard the loud popping of an airplane engine and saw a plume of smoke. They called 911 and then heard another loud explosion.

“We couldn’t see the crash because we were on the beach on the other side of the trees, but we knew that something bad had happened,” Rick Syverson said. “There was a loud popping and then we saw smoke. I called 911. Then there was another loud explosion.”

Rick Syverson said the couple was in a group of four or five people who rushed to the crash site. Emergency responders came quickly, too, but it was too late, he said.

“We saw the flames. It looked like it was totally incinerated,” Gayle Syverson said. “There was nothing that we could do … They went quick. There was nothing left.”

She said her heart goes out to the victims and their family and friends, especially those who were on the field watching when the plane went down.

“The families were in the middle of the field,” she said. “They were crying. There was a little boy watching. Oh, my God. It was tragic. Everyone in the North Shore is praying for them.”

Gayle Syverson said she wonders what happened and needs closure, too.

“I think the plane was only supposed to hold nine,” she said. “I don’t understand how there were 11 people that died. But the guys were so good. They were so experienced. I just don’t believe it.”

Brian Jones said he hopes investigators come to a conclusion that helps prevent a similar crash.

Jones said he and crash victim Mike Martin, who worked for Oahu Parachute Center, were good friends of Heather Riley, who was killed along with three others in a July 28, 2017, plane crash in the mountains of Waipio.

In that case, the NTSB said pilot error was to blame. The Beech 19A single-engine aircraft was more than 60 pounds over its weight limit when it took off, the NTSB said.

In the Dillingham Airfield crash, Jones said he knew that the plane had had problems in California.

“Why would they still be using the plane?” he asked. “I hope investigators find a cause that brings the families some kind of tranquility. This was just a senseless tragedy. Why did 11 people have to die?”

David Gray, a pilot from Kahala, drove to the crash site Saturday to see if the scene could provide any clues.

“As pilots, whenever a crash happens, we get together as a community to discuss it,” said Gray, who used to fly a Cessna 337. “It could have been us. Aviation is safe and pilots are intelligent, but accidents can happen.”

Based on the placement of the burned markings at the left side of the field at the crash site, Gray speculated the twin-engine plane lost the left engine at takeoff. While pilots can fly when one engine goes out, Gray said, “It’s very difficult when the plane is traveling very low and slow.”

Brennalyn Kaopua-Medeiros, a Waialua resident, took a handpicked bouquet to the crash site Saturday in memory of the skydivers she used to watch from the beach.

“I loved to watch them coming down from the sky. It must have been so exciting to be free falling from the sky,” Kaopua-Medeiros said. “My heart broke when I heard about the crash on the news. I wanted to pay my respects.”

Kaopua-Medeiros, 20, said she had been planning to book a skydive to mark her 21st birthday in July.

“I’d been dreaming of going skydiving for years,” she said. “Now, I’m not so sure. We’ll see.”