Marv -

Here's the newspaper story. I loathe those who make armchair analyses and
draw conclusions of aviation tragedies based on minimal information so I
won't do it here.

Ted Stanley



Two die in crash
One man injured in plane wreck near Cd'A

By MIKE McLEAN
Staff writer - The Coeur d'Alene Press - 10-16-2002

COEUR d'ALENE -- Two men were killed and a third was injured Tuesday when a
single-engine plane crashed at a private airstrip east of Coeur d'Alene.
Pilot Grant Bailey, 32, Boise, and passenger Barry Boepple, 39, Meridian,
died on impact, said sheriff's Capt. Ben Wolfinger. Another passenger, Nate
Calvin, 34, Boise, was taken to Kootenai Medical Center where he was treated
for leg fractures, cuts and scrapes. He was listed in good condition Tuesday
evening.
Wolfinger said the preliminary investigation shows the northbound Lancair IV
touched down on the south end of the landing strip, but drifted to the
right. The right rear landing gear sank into gravel on the right shoulder,
causing the pilot to lose control.
"A wingtip struck a tree," Wolfinger said. "The plane spun around, hit a
stand of pine trees and broke in half."
The fuselage landed upside down about 50 feet east of the runway with the
tail about 30 feet behind it. Both wings were sheared off. One tip was
lodged about 6 feet high in a pine trunk.
Wolfinger said Boepple and Bailey probably died instantly. Calvin was
ejected from the plane when the tail section broke off.
All three men worked for Chelton Flight Systems of Boise and were in the
area on a business trip, Wolfinger said.
It wasn't the noise from the airstrip that alarmed Maura Regan.
It was the silence.
"That's what got my attention," she said.
Regan was working at her desk overlooking Wolf Lodge Bay from her Vista
Heights home when she saw the plane flying over Lake Coeur d'Alene from the
south toward the airstrip at about 9:20 a.m.
She expected the pilot to drop off Calvin, a friend of her husband Brent
Regan.
She heard a sound just after the plane passed by the house, but she didn't
immediately think it was a crash.
"It was like something dropped in another room," she said.
Then she noticed she could no longer hear the plane.
She was familiar with the noise of the routine landings of her husband's
plane and thought it odd that this plane would already be silent.
She opened the window and saw her husband running and shouting, "Call 911."
He pulled Calvin, who was splashed with aviation fuel, away from the crash
site.
"He was afraid it was going to explode," she said.
Wolfinger said firefighters sprayed foam as a precaution over parts of the
crash site.
"There was some fuel leakage, but no fire," he said.
The accident will be investigated by the Federal Aviation Administration and
the National Transportation Safety Board, Wolfinger said.
The Lancair IV is a four-seat plane classified by the FAA as an experimental
aircraft.