Plane burst into flames before falling in Nevada, report says

Dashcam footage of a fatal midair collision last month between two small planes in northern Nevada showed one of the planes “erupting in flames and falling near vertical” into a field, the National Transportation Safety Board said in a preliminary report released Tuesday.

A Cessna T206H and a Globe Swift GC-1B collided in flight near the Minden-Tahoe Airport on Sept. 16. The crash killed the Swift’s pilot, who was identified as Donald Bartholomew, 74, of Gardnerville, The Record Courier reported.

According to the report, one of the Cessna’s two pilots, who was performing a flight examination, heard a radio call from another airplane that stated they were going to approach a runway at the airport. The two pilots in the Cessna began looking for the other airplane, but could not see it outside the plane or on their ADS-B, a surveillance technology used by aircraft.

As the Cessna’s pilot was making a radio call of his position while descending, the Cessna struck the Swift, but the Cessna pilot said he never saw the airplane and “instead believed that the engine or propeller blade experienced a catastrophic failure,” the report states.

After the Cessna’s windscreen became covered in oil, the instructor pilot made an emergency landing at one of the airport’s runways.

The collision was captured on the dashcam of a vehicle driving north on U.S. Highway 395, which showed the Swift crossing west over the freeway at a “slightly” higher altitude than the Cessna before the crash.

After the crash, the Swift caught fire and fell into a field near the airport.

NTSB said in the report that it could not determine if the Swift had attempted the evade the other airplane before the crash or if either plane had navigation and strobe lights on.

The Swift did not have ADS-B surveillance technology, and NTSB said no radar data from the plane was available at the time of the report.

Wreckage spread over 1,205 feet

The Swift’s wreckage showed that the plane sustained “significant” fire damage, primarily to the cockpit, according to the report.

Debris from the crash was spread out over 1,025 feet across the two fields, which included fragments from both the Cessna and Swift. The Swift’s main tail was found 450 feet from the main wreckage, and was missing several pieces.

A post-accident investigation found that the Swift’s tailwheel was also “lodged entirely underneath” the Cessna’s engine at the front of the Cessna’s plane, obscured from view, the report said.

In the report, a friend of the Swift’s pilot said the pilot was “meticulous and would consistently follow the same routines during flights,” and added that the pilot was “diligent about listening for traffic and maintaining a constant lookout for other aircraft in the area.”

Contact Taylor Lane at tlane@reviewjournal.com.