The NTSB released a report Tuesday chronicling the downtown crash last summer of a Cessna U206F airplane departing from Merrill Field. The analysis of the crash -- which killed the 4-year-old son of the plane's pilot -- found that the plane was far over its gross weight limit by more than 650 pounds, including more than 400 pounds of lumber and 300 pounds of tile.
The plane took off from Merrill Field Airport on the afternoon of June 1. Witnesses reported seeing the plane flying off-kilter, with its nose too high in the air. Residents of the nearby Ingra House reported hearing the plane and saying that it sounded overloaded or revved up. The plane crashed next to a vacant building on the corner of 7th and Ingra, where passers-by acting as rescuers worked to remove the survivors. Four people were pulled from the wreckage as the plane burned.
Rescuers were unable to reach the 4-year-old, the report said, because the cargo shifted in the crash. According to the report,the child had been unrestrained in the plane, sitting in his mother's lap in the front passenger seat. A 2-year-old in the back who was similarly unrestrained, according to the report, survived when the boy's mother handed him to rescuers.
The NTSB report reveals that the plane, headed for the owner's lodge in Port Alsworth, was heavily loaded with a number of items, including 55 pieces of lumber and several hundred pounds of ceramic tile, as well as a car battery, food and the passengers' clothing and goods.One rescuer said that the "airplane cabin was loaded from floor to ceiling, and they had to remove some of the cargo to reach the occupants."
This brought the gross weight of the plane to an estimated 4,258 pounds, "or 658.2 pounds over the approved gross weight of the accident airplane," according to the report.
The report also includes an interview with a mechanic who "stated he saw the pilot operate the airplane in what he believed was an overweight condition on four or five separate occasions." The same mechanic said that he had not seen the pilot weigh any cargo loaded into the plane.
The pilot's own statement in the report reveals that the pilot estimated the weight of fuel, cargo, and passengers at "1,400 to 1,450 pounds," an underestimation of more than 600 pounds from the actual likely weight of 2,092 pounds.