An Internet entrepreneur from Steamboat Springs didn’t have the ice removed from her plane before she left on the fatal flight that killed her and her 10-year-old son, airport officials said.
Jeanette Symons, 45, a telecommunications pioneer and co-founder of Industrious Kid, which creates online products for children, was piloting her Cessna Citation jet when it crashed Friday after takeoff from Augusta State Airport in Maine.
Symons was returning to Steamboat after spending a week at a ski camp on Sugar Loaf Mountain with her son.
Symons took off during a storm that coated the ground, vehicles and trees with a granular layer of ice, said William Perry, owner of Maine Instrument Flight, which operates facilities at the airport.
“It was a spooky night; it was not easy to navigate,” he said Sunday.
With the storm looming Friday morning, Symons called the airport and asked that her plane be parked in the hangar, Perry said.
The company put the plane in the hangar but had to remove it later to shelter a regional jet owned by Colgen, the airline that serves the airport.
About 5:30 p.m., Symons drove her rental car to the plane, stowed her gear and looked over the aircraft, Perry said.
“Our guys were assuming she was going to have to be de-iced. She came in and said, ‘I’m all set.’ Our guy said, ‘Are you sure?” and she said, ‘No, I’m all set,'” Perry said. “She may have looked the plane over and said there’s not much ice. All I can tell you is there was ice all over everything.”
Symons, who didn’t appear to be inebriated or otherwise incapacitated, then did something that further surprised Perry’s employees.
Instead of heading west on a taxiway to the runway, she cut across a field and drove the plane through a ditch, blasting her engines to get through the depression, said Perry, who heard the story from his workers.
She then followed a meandering route to the runway.
“She got almost to the runway, and our guys turned the field lights on. She should have done that herself at that point. I think she just got confused; it was a strange airport, and she was trying to feel her way around,” Perry said.
A layer of ice can bring an aircraft down, said Peter Knudson, a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board. “It reduces the lift, and it can lead to a stall.”
The NTSB is investigating the accident, but it could be a year before results are known.
Symons moved from San Francisco to Steamboat Springs about 18 months ago. The San Francisco Chronicle said the move was an effort to give her two children recreational opportunities not available in the city. She regularly commuted to the Bay Area by plane.
Symons is survived by her 7-year-old daughter, Jennie.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Tom McGhee: 303-954-1671 or tmcghee@denverpost.com
