WASHINGTON — Speculation over the crash of a single-engine turboprop plane into a cemetery shifted to ice on the wings Monday after it became less likely that overloading was to blame, given that half of the 14 people aboard were small children.
While descending Sunday in preparation for landing at the Bert Mooney Airport in Butte, Mont., the plane passed through a layer of air at about 1,500 feet that was conducive to icing because the temperatures were below freezing and the air “had 100 percent relative humidity or was saturated,” according to , a forecasting service in State College, Pa.
Safety experts said similar icing conditions existed when a Continental Airlines twin-engine turboprop crashed into a home in Buffalo, N.Y., last month.
Mark Rosenker, acting NTSB chairman, told reporters in Montana that investigators would look at icing on the wings as a factor.
Turboprop planes rely on de-icing boots — strips of rubber-like material on the leading edge of the wings and the horizontal part of the tail — that inflate and contract to break up ice. That technology, which goes back decades, isn’t as effective at eliminating ice as the heat that jetliners divert from their engines to their wings.
The single-engine plane, designed to carry 10 people, crashed 500 feet short of the Montana airport runway Sunday, nose-diving into a cemetery and killing seven adults and seven children aboard. Safety experts said finding the cause of the crash is likely to be complicated by the absence of either a cockpit voice recorder or a flight-data recorder.
Investigators say the 65-year-old pilot, Buddy Summerfield, was a former Air Force pilot with thousands of flight hours piloting civilian aircraft.
Relatives said the victims were headed to an exclusive resort on a ski vacation, and gave the children’s ages as 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9, plus two 4-year-olds.
“We were going on a vacation with all the grandkids,” said Irving M. “Bud” Feldkamp, who lost two daughters and their families in the crash. “They were all excited about skiing.”
Feldkamp leased the airplane that crashed. He said he, his wife and another daughter had driven to Montana for the vacation.
Feldkamp said the victims were Erin and Amy Jacobson of St. Helena, Calif., and their children, Taylor, Ava, and Jude; Michael and Vanessa Pullen of Lodi, Calif., and their children, Sydney and Christopher; Brent and Kristen Ching of Durham, Calif., and their children, Heyley and Caleb.
