Investigators will sift through the wreckage of two small planes at a hangar in Greeley as they search for clues to the cause of a midair collision that killed three.
On Monday, a National Transportation Safety Board investigator released a handful of details of the probe into the crash Saturday afternoon.
It could be months before a cause is determined, but NTSB interviews with witnesses to the crash are starting to provide a timeline of events before the collision, which occurred at 1:30 p.m.
Reuben Bakker, who was piloting a glider tethered to a Piper Pawnee, spotted a second aircraft to his right about 10 seconds before the crash, said air-safety investigator Jennifer Rodi.
The second plane appeared to be descending. Alexander Gilmer, pilot of the Pawnee, was at an altitude of about 8,500 feet and climbing to 10,000 feet, at which point the glider was to be set loose, Rodi said.
Bakker, who was traveling with two passengers, realized the danger and disengaged the tow line. The two planes collided in a fireball, Rodi said, and the glider passed through it. Bakker safely landed the glider at Boulder Municipal Airport, about 3 miles away.
Bakker, who didn’t return The Denver Post’s phone calls for comment, couldn’t tell whether Gilmer saw the Cirrus Sr20 coming, Rodi said.
“(Gilmer) made no attempt to climb or to move or to bank,” she said.
Gilmer, 25, an employee of Mile High Gliding, died in the crash. The two in the Cirrus — Bob Matthews, 58, a partner at Faegre & Benson’s Boulder law office, and his brother, Mark, 56 — also died.
Bakker’s two passengers in the Schweizer 2-32 glider — a woman and her 11-year-old son — have not been named.
Witnesses on the ground described people jumping from the burning planes as the aircrafts plummeted.
But Rodi said it isn’t clear what the witnesses actually saw. “It is impossible to say if anybody jumped,” she said.
One body was found inside the Cirrus, and the other two bodies were on the ground near the planes.
Boulder resident Frank Shorter was walking when he heard the tow plane flying about three-quarters of a mile away. He looked up and saw the Pawnee with the glider attached.
He said he heard an aircraft engine change pitch and realized there was another plane nearby. He continued watching, wondering how much distance there would be between the two when they crossed paths.
He was watching as the planes exploded, though he didn’t get a clear view of the Cirrus before impact.
“The first thought is those people are dead,” said Shorter, a gold medalist in the marathon at the 1972 Olympics.
Wreckage of the planes will be laid out in a hangar at Greeley-Weld County Airport, Rodi said.
“We just try to lay out the wreckage to resemble what the airplane would look like as a normal airplane getting ready to go out and fly,” she said.
Tom McGhee: 303-954-1671 or tmcghee@denverpost.com
