National Transportation Safety Board investigators this week continued to examine wreckage from and information related to the crash of a Bell 407 helicopter in a corn field near Dagsboro last Thursday night, hoping to identify what caused the crash that killed developer and philanthropist Joshua M. Freeman, 42, and his pilot, Alisa Danielle Howell, 30.
Coastal Point • RUSLANA LAMBERT:
Officials are still trying to determine the cause of the fatal helicopter crash in Dagsboro last Thursday that claimed two lives.
Wreckage from the crash had been removed from the field on Townsends Road on Friday and Saturday, to be transported to an aircraft investigation facility for further examination.
The preliminary report on the crash, expected about a week after the Dec. 14 incident, had not been released prior to the Coastal Point’s press time this week, and a final report may not be released for a year or more. But fog was widely suspected as at least one factor in the crash, with weather reports and witnesses noting heavy, but patchy, fog in the area throughout that evening.
According to DSP Public Information Officer Sgt. Melissa Zebley, a DSP trooper responded to a report from a Townsend family member around 5 p.m. that a helicopter had landed on his property, in farm fields on the west side of Townsends Road, some 200 to 300 yards from the road.
Contacted at 5:25 p.m., Howell — who was based in the Washington, D.C., office of charter company HeloAir — reported to the trooper that she had planned to land at the Bear Trap Dunes Golf Course to pick up her passenger but had landed instead in the Townsend family’s fields because that location was outside of the fog. She said she had notified her passenger of the change and was awaiting his arrival before taking off for Maryland — an explanation that Zebley said satisfied Townsend.
Carl M. Freeman Companies CEO Josh Freeman, who also served as chairman of the Carl M. Freeman Foundation — a charitable organization that provides grants to organizations in Sussex County and in the Washington, D.C., area — was in Ocean View on Thursday night, attending a holiday party at the Carl M. Freeman Communities’ Den at Bear Trap Dunes development.
Freeman routinely traveled to the community via helicopter from his Gaithersburg, Md., home and the Olney, Md., home base of the company his father founded. Helicopters landing on the golf course were a regular sight for nearby residents and golfers. (HeloAir officials this week would not comment on whether Howell or any other HeloAir pilot had previously flown Freeman to or from Ocean View.)
On Dec. 15, Freeman was scheduled to be picked up by the chartered helicopter at Bear Trap and flown to another company event in the Washington, D.C. area. But the heavy fog altered those plans, causing Howell to land farther away from the coast, in the farm field.
Townsend’s neighbor Roger Knox said he also spotted the helicopter after the initial unplanned landing in the field.
“I saw her circle the farm a couple times and land in the back field,” Knox recalled this week. “She put her down like a real pro,” he volunteered, suggesting her overflights would have allowed her to verify the location of any utility lines or other hazards.
“There was nothing that to me that sounded bad, nothing wrong mechanically,” Knox said of that initial landing.
Weather conditions in the area shifted throughout the evening, depending on exact location and time.
“It was foggy, but I could see quite a ways. It wasn’t as bad there as it was here (in Ocean View),” Knox noted of the time and location when Howell first landed. “There was 2 miles of visibility, at least. But not when she was taking off,” he added.
“It was dark when I left the farm … around 6 or 6:10. It was getting thicker,” Knox recalled. “It was both foggy and dark. There was maybe a quarter-mile visibility, or a half-mile. It was patchy,” he added of the fog.
Coastal Point • RUSLANA LAMBERT:
Sgt. Melissa A. Zebley of the Delaware State Police gives a statement on the crash on the evening of Thursday, Dec. 14.
An initial telephone call to 911 reporting the helicopter crash was taken at 6:17 p.m. Thursday, roughly the same time a local fire police officer reported the crash via radio, according to SCEMS Public Information Officer Joseph Hopple. The first responding officer arrived on the scene at 6:20 p.m., with fire and DSP units arriving at 6:27 p.m.
The aircraft had apparently flown a mere 400 to 600 yards before crashing, making it across the roadway and clearing utility lines that run along the eastern side of the road. Wreckage was scattered along a 180-foot teardrop-shaped path, ending with the body of the craft, which lay resting on its side, its front crushed and rotors bent.
The National Weather Service in Mount Holly, N.J., had issued a heavy fog advisory for the entire state of Delaware at 6 p.m. Thursday, while the NWS’s Virginia office had issued a similar warning earlier in the afternoon for nearby areas of Maryland.
Overnight warnings continued to advise of widespread dense fog throughout the region. “Visibilities were zero or close to zero in many locations,” warnings still read in the wee hours of Friday morning. “Mariners are advised to be prepared for very low visibility this morning,” NWS warned.
Brian Raynor, a senior air safety investigator with the NTSB who was on-site the day after the crash, said the investigation will involve detailed examination of the wreckage, and collection of any additional related data — including the pilot’s experience and qualifications — and could also possibly include research by specialists in the field, if needed.
Despite the fog, Raynor did not rule out mechanical failure as a possible cause or factor in the crash, emphasizing investigators’ role of collecting all available information before an interpretation of that information and final ruling on the accident is made by the five-person, presidentally-appointed board of the NTSB.
“Helicopters are complex machines,” Raynor said of the possibility of a mechanical failure. “They have a lot of moving parts. There’s a lot to be documented.” He noted that Bell is considered a highly reputable manufacturer of helicopters.
Also initially considered as a possible factor was the presence of a number of utility lines and poles in the area. But Raynor said investigators had determined there was no damage to any close-by lines, poles or other large structures, such as irrigation equipment in the fields.
That has returned focus to the deteriorating weather conditions and Howell’s decision to take off again.
Howell, possessed a commercial rating on her helicopter pilot’s license, as well as being rated to instruct others. HeloAir officials confirmed this week that she had more than 3,000 hours of flight time logged at the time of the incident, and she is known to have previously flown the Bell 407 model in a variety of situations. But she did not have an instrument flight rating (IFR), which would certify her to fly in conditions of poor visibility based on instrumentation alone.
The Bell 407 helicopter she was flying that night was likewise not equipped to be flown solely by instruments, according to Raynor. So, Howell was flying under “visual flight rules” or VFR.
The Federal Aviation Administration’s rules on VFR flight, Section §135.205, dictate the following: “No person may operate a helicopter under VFR in Class G airspace [as in this area] at an altitude of 1,200 feet or less above the surface or within the lateral boundaries of the surface areas of Class B, Class C, Class D, or Class E airspace designated for an airport unless the visibility is at least: (1) During the day — 1/2 mile; or (2) At night — 1 mile.”
Additional, Section §135.207 says, “No person may operate a helicopter under VFR unless that person has visual surface reference or, at night, visual surface light reference, sufficient to safely control the helicopter.”
And Section §135.213, “Weather reports and forecasts,” states: “Whenever a person operating an aircraft under this part is required to use a weather report or forecast, that person shall use that of the U.S. National Weather Service, a source approved by the U.S. National Weather Service, or a source approved by the Administrator. However, for operations under VFR, the pilot in command may, if such a report is not available, use weather information based on that pilot’s own observations or on those of other persons competent to supply appropriate observations.”
It is unknown at this time whether or when Howell might have checked the weather prior to her final takeoff. Raynor said there was no known record of a VFR flight plan having been filed, as is recommended but not required by the FAA. The nearest airports for weather observations are in Georgetown and Ocean City, Md. It is possible that she relied on her own observations of the area, under the conditions of patchy fog that existed when she had landed, an hour prior.
Philip Greenspun is a Massachusetts-based helicopter and fixed-wing aircraft pilot who had flown as a passenger with Howell during some of her television traffic flights in Virginia and is himself rated to instruct in instrument-based flight.
“A lot has been made about her lack of an instrument rating, but the statistical fact is that people with instrument ratings who unintentionally get into clouds don’t do any better than pilots with instrument ratings,” Greenspun told the Coastal Point this week.
“Alisa would have had at least some instrument training (minimum of 10 hours by regulation) as a condition of holding a commercial pilot’s license,” he explained. “An instrument rating is good if you plan a flight from airport to airport and study the departure and approach procedures in advance. It doesn’t help that much in an airplane if you are close to the ground and in the clouds. It doesn’t help hardly at all in a helicopter under these circumstances.”
Greenspun said an advanced avionics system, such as one in which a “computer just shows you a picture of what you would see outside if you could look outside, like Microsoft Flight Simulator,” could have helped avoid such an accident. He said such equipment is now standard for new helicopters, but not in the 1998 Bell model in which Howell and Freeman were flying.
“The official investigations always conclude by saying it was pilot error and the pilot could have avoided the accident. They are right, of course, but it isn’t the whole story,” Greenspun said. “Had the helicopter been equipped with more pilot-friendly avionics, the accident might well have been avoided.
“And the fact that a pilot gets blamed for the accident doesn’t make her a bad pilot,” he admonished. “We all have made mistakes that could have gotten us killed. Any of us who are still alive to fly have been lucky in some way at least once.”
Whether the NTSB conclusions about the accident will point to Howell, the weather, mechanical failure or some other factor remains to be seen. The preliminary report is due out this week, with about a year to wait before a final determination is made public.
Meanwhile, two sets of families, co-workers, friends and communities are mourning the loss of two lives cut tragically short on a December night in a corn field outside Dagsboro.