Goodland Plane Crash: 74 yr old pilot not qualified to fly blind.

GOODLAND — The pilot of a single-engine Cessna airplane who was killed in a crash near Goodland on Dec. 17 was not qualified to fly using only his aircraft’s instruments, according to a preliminary crash report released Monday by the National Transportation Safety Board.

However, a Collier County Sheriff’s Office pilot who responded to the scene reported that conditions the night of the crash would have required 74-year-old Benjamin Arthur Simpson Sr. to do so.

Before the crash, Simpson, a widower and a member of the Naples Civil Air Patrol, told a witness at the Naples Municipal Airport that he was going flying on night recurrence training, according to the report.

Pilots who want to carry passengers at night need to have completed three night takeoffs and landings in the previous 90 days, said Al Russo, a flight instructor with the Naples-based RexAir Flight & Maintenance Center.

"He might have just wanted to go out there and practice to stay current," Russo said.

Around 7:40 p.m., while Simpson was flying south in the pitch black sky over Goodland, residents on the ground reported hearing the plane’s engine increase in rpm, followed by a bang. Two witnesses told the safety board that they saw the plane "nose-dive" toward the ground.

The Cessna 172, which was rented from the Naples Air Center, Inc., crashed into about 5 feet of water on a tidal mud-flat just off of Coon Key. The day after the crash investigators said they weren’t aware of any distress signal.

The plane had been operated for about 20 hours since its most recent 100-hour inspection, which was performed five days before the crash.

"We have not identified any pre-existing failures at this point," Luke Schiada, a lead investigator for the safety board, said of the aircraft. "We’re still at a fact gathering stage. We’re still not drawing any conclusions."

Simpson reported 812 hours of total flight experience on his most recent application for a Federal Aviation Administration third-class medical certificate, which was issued April 16, 2008, the safety board reported.

However, he did not possess an instrument rating.

"You do not need an instrument rating to fly at night. You need an instrument rating to fly in instrument meteorological conditions," said safety board spokesman Peter Knudson, referring to conditions when there are no outside visual cues.

Night visual meteorological conditions prevailed the night of the crash at the Naples airport. But according to the report, a helicopter pilot from the Sheriff’s Office who responded to the scene soon after the crash reported that it was "very dark" with "no visual reference to a horizon looking out towards the Gulf of Mexico."

The lack of visual cues with the naked eye would have required navigation via aircraft instrumentation, the Sheriff’s Office pilot reported.

"The only thing that works, the only one of your senses that works in the air to tell you what’s up and what’s down, is your vision," Russo said. "Unless you have a visual reference on the horizon, you may as well be in instrument metrological conditions, even though you’re in visual meteorological conditions."

Investigators were able to recover "all major portions of the airplane," which were transported to a hanger for examination. The cockpit and instrument panel were completely destroyed.

According to fueling records, before the crash the Cessna 172 was topped off with about 20 gallons of fuel earlier in day. The Naples Air Center reported that the plane had been flown on two flights for 2.9 hours after the refueling and prior to the accident, the NTSB reported.

Russo said a Cessna 172 holds over 50 gallons of fuel and burns about 10 gallons an hour.

"The chances are there was no problem with the airplane," Russo said.

Schiada would not discuss possible medical issues with the 74-year-old pilot.

"I don’t have an official autopsy report, so I can’t comment on that," Schiada said. "We’re still working on it. We still have a lot of information to gather."

A final report is expected to be released in six months to a year.