By Brian C. Rittmeyer
Pittsburgh Tribune Review
Copyright 2007 Tribune Review Publishing Company
All Rights Reserved
A medical jet attempting to land at the Butler County Airport Wednesday morning came in high and fast before going off the end of the runway, the airport’s manager said.
The four crew members of the twin-engine Cessna Citation II operated by Florida-based Air Trek were treated for minor injuries at Butler Memorial Hospital.
State police identified the crew, all from Virginia, as pilot Stephen White, 62, of Warrenton; copilot Angela Aman, 42, of Stephens City; and therapist Kerry L. Dudley, 43, and nurse Vicki E. Carr, 50, both of Winchester. Aman was at the controls during the landing, state police said.
The flight originated at Air Trek’s base in Winchester, outside Washington, and was scheduled to pick up a passenger at the airport for a destination in the Northeast, said Dana Carr, director of operations for Air Trek, an air ambulance provider that has its corporate headquarters at the Charlotte County Airport in Punta Gorda, Fla.
Officials with the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board were investigating. A preliminary report is expected in seven to nine days, with final findings in six to nine months.
The jet went off the end of the 4,800-foot runway, traveled through an antenna structure 300 feet from the end of the runway and a fence, then crossed Three Degree Road before coming to rest about 800 feet from the end of the runway in a field behind the Penn Township Volunteer Fire Department.
Firefighters extinguished a small fire outside the plane after the crash.
Airport Manager Don Bailey said he was outside on the taxiway when he saw the plane come in for landing about 9 a.m. He said conditions were hazy, with fog and a thin coating of snow on the runway. Bailey said the jet appeared to come in “a little bit high” and “awfully fast.”
“It looked like he touched down further down the runway than normal,” he said.
The airport’s runway was extended from 4,000 feet to 4,800 feet last year, Bailey said.
No one was at the volunteer fire station at the time of the crash. Fire Chief Jeff Crede said a plane went off the end of the runway and almost struck the fire hall in 2005.
According to the FAA, Air Trek has a relatively clean record. A company plane ran off a runway during an emergency landing in the Bahamas in May, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. Two other incidents involved an engine fire in 2004 and a deer running into a plane in 1998 in Williamsport.