The National Transportation Safety Board blamed pilot error for a nighttime crash-landing of a small plane by a 79-year-old pilot who failed to immediately report the Feb. 27 accident at a private Molokai airstrip.
Wednesday the NTSB released a factual report, which precedes a preliminary report, showing pilot John Weiser Jr. erred when he continued to approach the runway on his second landing attempt, despite being misaligned with runway lights going off and on. He should have re-established his final approach 3 miles out before attempting to land, the report said.
The twin-engine Partenavia P68 Observer sustained substantial damage in the 7:30 p.m. accident, and no mechanical malfunction or failure was reported, the NTSB said.
Weiser, who lives on Oahu and owns Panda Ranch on Molokai’s West End, where the airstrip is located, is also co-founder of Affordable Casket Outlet LLC, the plane’s registered owner.
Weiser reported to federal investigators he was using a Garmin GPS unit to locate the field at night. He "found himself about 400 yards to one side of the approach to the airstrip," then "made a short approach for landing and the right wing drifted into the tree line."
The NTSB report said the runway lights had gone out, so the pilot activated the lights twice. The runway lights went on when the plane was less than a half-mile from the approach end. He made an abrupt landing with runway lights obscured by trees in the last few seconds of the final approach.
The plane was still flying when the aircraft’s right wing hit a line of ironwood trees, which slowed it to below "stall speed" and caused it to drop 10 feet, hitting the ground with the right wing. The aircraft spun and slid tail first into a pair of trees.
The nose landing gear was sheared, causing the propeller to strike the right engine, the report said.
The pilot, who was the plane’s sole occupant, climbed out of the emergency hatch uninjured.
Weiser told the NTSB that he had landed thousands of times day and night on this airstrip on his property, and admitted his "feelings of confidence masked the consequences of continuing a bad approach and attempting to pull it off."
Paragon Air Inc. was listed on the NTSB report as the operator of the aircraft.
In 2006 Weiser’s company John Hutton Corp., doing business as Tora Flight Adventures, was fined $15,000 by the Federal Aviation Administration for transporting tourists in small planes from Honolulu to Panda Ranch without proper certification. The company was ordered to cease operations.
Days later two people were critically injured when a small plane run by Tora Flight Adventures crashed just after takeoff from Panda Ranch’s airstrip. Weiser was not the pilot.
Weiser had his pilot’s license suspended for various violations that occurred Dec. 28, 2009, including operating an aircraft in a careless or reckless manner so as to endanger life or property of another and failure to accomplish a flight review. It also found he falsified, reproduced or altered applications, certificates, logbooks, reports or records.
On Jan. 4, 2009, Weiser, then 74, was piloting a twin-engine plane used for scattering ashes. On a personal trip to Honolulu, he made a hard landing at Honolulu Airport. He had a passenger aboard but no one was hurt.
He also crashed a small plane July 25, 2009, in Kaunakakai, Molokai, with one passenger aboard, but no one was injured. The NTSB determined pilot error was the probable cause.
