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Planes Were Circling Each Other at Time of Collision: Company Began in 1986

Posted on: Tuesday, 7 February 2006, 12:00 CST

By Larry Sandler and Tom Held, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Feb. 7--Juneau -- The two cargo planes that collided near Watertown were circling and taking pictures of each other on a final shakedown flight before a scheduled Monday departure for service in Iraq, a federal transportation official said.

The Shorts 360 planes, owned Milwaukee-based Air Cargo Carriers Inc., had been fitted recently with extended-range fuel systems for the work in Iraq, said Todd Fox, a National Transportation Safety Board investigator. Their pending mission in Iraq was part of a contract with the U.S. Defense Department.

The planes left Mitchell International Airport around 4 p.m. Sunday. The flights were intended as a final check of those systems and a picture-taking opportunity.

Before the crash, the crews had been taking still and video pictures as one of the planes circled the other, Fox told reporters at the Dodge County Airport in Juneau. Fox said he did not know how the company had planned to use the pictures.

As one of the planes circled, it collided with the other plane.

The circling craft was disabled and crashed, killing Robert Chabot, 25, of Plano, Texas; Todd Hagan, 42, of Essex Junction, Vt.; and his wife, Tracy Marshall Hagan, 37.

Chabot had worked for Air Cargo Carriers for about three years, according to his sister, Elizabeth Chabot.

After the collision, the other damaged plane limped roughly 20 miles to the Dodge County Airport. With its landing gear apparently disabled the crash, the plane skidded onto a runway there on its belly around 5:30 p.m. All three people on board survived without injury, authorities said.

The left wing was heavily damaged, Fox said, but he declined to comment on whether that was the spot hit the other aircraft.

Dodge County Sheriff Todd Nehls identified the survivors as Andrew Lambert, 26, of Chesapeake, Va.; Timothy Vanderploeg, 23, of Allegan, Mich.; and Rudy Nikolao, 52, of Kingston, Va.

Fox said the pilots, co-pilots and passengers had expected to be airborne for up to two hours.

The pictures taken the surviving air crew now will become evidence in the NTSB investigation, along with Federal Aviation Administration radar data, statements from the survivors and the two aircraft themselves, Fox said. It could take weeks or months to determine the cause of the accident.

Executives with Air Cargo Carriers, which began operations in 1986, were not available to comment throughout the day on Monday.

Located off S. Howell Ave., north of Mitchell's main terminal, Air Cargo Carriers is an on-demand delivery service with about 135 employees. An airport spokeswoman said the company averaged two to three departures a day, but that the daily activity varied widely depending on the business demand.

In October 2000, the company bought a 28,000-square-foot hangar at Hartford Municipal Airport for maintenance on what was then a fleet of 25 aircraft. At the time, the company was a contractor for the U.S. Postal Service, United Parcel Service and other overnight express businesses.

The Shorts 360 carries a payload of 6,000 to 7,000 pounds and has a range of roughly 500 miles. It was designed as a passenger plane its Irish manufacturer, but Air Cargo converted its fleet to freight operations. In 1989, Air Cargo developed a system for using containers that could be easily loaded into the Shorts 360 aircraft.

According to a Federal Aviation Administration database, the plane that survived was a Shorts 360-300 and the one that crashed was a Shorts 360-100.

Elizabeth Chabot said her brother had spent most of the three years he worked for Air Cargo in California, before moving to Wisconsin about one month ago in preparation for the contract work in Iraq.

Chabot began flying around his senior year at Plano Senior High School, following in the steps of his father, Richard, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who flew for Delta Airlines for 30 years.

"He was born to fly," Elizabeth Chabot said of her brother. "Ever since he was little, he wanted to be in the cockpit."

FAA doesn't identify pilots

During the briefing, Fox did not specify who was flying either aircraft. Nehls and Jefferson County Sheriff Paul Milbrath said they did not know who the pilots were.

However, an FAA database shows no pilot's license on file under the spelling Nehls provided for Nikolao's name. Chabot was certified as a commercial pilot; Lambert is certified as both a commercial pilot and a flight instructor; and Todd Hagan was certified as an airline pilot, instructor and mechanic.

The database also shows a pilot's license for a Tracy Lynn Marshall of Essex Junction, Vt. A Timothy Vanderploeg is listed as a student pilot, but his hometown is shown as Blythe, Calif., not Allegan, Mich.

Larry Sandler reported from Juneau and Tom Held from Milwaukee.

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Copyright (c) 2006, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

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Source: The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

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