EVANSVILLE, Ind. -- Human error caused the February crash of a Kentucky Air National Guard plane that killed 16 people, according to the plane's cockpit voice recorder, reports said Monday.
Conversations in the cockpit indicated the co-pilot of the C-130B cargo plane stepped on the wrong rudder pedal at a crucial point in the flight, according a Scripps-Howard newspaper report. The error sent the plane and its five-man crew to their deaths in a fiery crash that also killed 11 people onthe ground, where a hotel and a restaurant were set ablaze.
The investigators said that, after completing a low approach to Evansville Regional Airport, the plane's crew unexpectedly received orders to return to their Louisville base. While instructor-pilot Maj. Richard A. Strang was distracted looking for a route on airway maps, the sources said, Lt. Vincent Yancar, 25, the co-pilot and least experienced member of the crew, was in the midst of performing a climb during a simulated engine failure.
As the plane reached 1,000 feet, Strang reminded Yancar to adjust the rudder pedal to keep the plane on track, the tape showed. Strang, 39, is heard telling Yancar to 'kick the ball,' meaning to adjust the rudder pedals so that a ball on the instrument level lines up to prevent the tail from slipping sideways -- a movement called yaw.
Yancar stepped on the wrong pedal, increasing the yaw and sending the plane into a skidding slide.
Strang took over, restored full power and nearly prevented the crash but lacked altitude to do so.
The report said Yancar had accumulated 87.4 flight hours in training at Little Rock, Ark., Air Force Base in the C-130, but had flown only 5. 1 hours in the month before the accident, because he was away at survival school for three weeks.
'The lieutenant co-pilot was pretty much brand new, just out of Little Rock and just back from survival school,' said Lt. Col Michael Harden, the squadron commander, in his accident statement.
The report said Master Sgt. William Hawkins, the flight engineer, also was relatively inexperienced and might not have recognized a stall coming on.
