Nashville, Tennessee (AP) – A airplane originating in Ontario crashed near downtown Nashville, killing all five people on board.
The pilot of the single-engine plane informed air traffic authorities that he could see the runway being cleared for an emergency landing. But he claimed he couldn’t reach it.
“I’m going to be landing — I don’t know where!” the pilot exclaimed before the jet crashed on Interstate 40.
At a Tuesday news conference, National Transportation Safety Board investigator Aaron McCarter revealed that the pilot was accompanied by another adult and three youngsters. He stated that the five were Canadian nationals, and the CIA is working with the Canadian government to determine their identities.
He claimed it was too early to determine what caused the crash. Investigators do not yet know the pilot’s qualifications or the number of flight hours he has, but his experience is one of the factors they will look into.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada has assigned a representative to the crash investigation being conducted by US authorities, according to board spokesperson Liam MacDonald in an email.
BREAKING: A single-engine airplane has crashed off the eastbound lanes of I-40 just past the Charlotte Pk exit. Several persons on board are deceased. Work continues to determine from where the plane originated. pic.twitter.com/6tyBa3UCpB
— Metro Nashville PD (@MNPDNashville) March 5, 2024
Around 7:40 p.m. Monday, the pilot radioed air traffic authorities to report that his engine had shut down. He claimed to have overflown John C. Tune airport, just west of downtown, at 2,500 feet and circled about in an attempt to land, according to a recording of their radio conversations.
They cleared runway two at the airport and instructed him to glide the jet down. However, the plane had already plummeted below 1,600 feet (488 meters) by then, he stated.
“I am too far away.” “I am not going to make it,” he stated.
That was the last they heard from the plane, which disappeared from radar as it lost height.
The plane crashed when Matthew Wiser was traveling on the freeway, and he shared a snapshot of the fiery wreckage on social media.
“I saw an airplane essentially crash out of the sky, fall out of the sky, and hit the ground at around a 45-degree angle,” Wiser stated over the phone. “When it impacted the earth, there was a fire explosion of 30 to 40 feet. And all of the vehicles on the freeway came to a halt to digest what they had witnessed.”
Air traffic controllers then directed a helicopter team to search the approach to the airport for the plane while keeping other aircraft out of the emergency zone. Within minutes, a slew of emergency cars sped to the site, Wiser reported.
They discovered that the jet caught fire in the grass, just off the highway and behind a Costco on the city’s westside, about 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) south of the general aviation airport.
According to Kendra Loney, a spokesperson for the Nashville Fire Department, no drivers were injured on the Interstate. Authorities reported that no vehicles or buildings on the ground were damaged.
According to Canada’s civil aviation registry, the aircraft mentioned in the radio recordings was a Piper PA-32R built in 1978 and based in Ontario.
According to sources, the airplane took off from Ontario, namely Milton, and made stops along the way that were likely to fuel up, including Erie, Pa., and Mount Sterling, Ky., McCarter said. McCarter noted that before the pilot radioed in the incident, the plane was on a normal flight path, with no mechanical anomalies observed when flying in from the Kentucky airport.
According to The Tennessean, the jet was registered in July 2023 to A D Metro, an Ottawa-based touchscreen firm. No other information was immediately provided.
The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating. McCarter stated that they boxed up the wreckage for transfer to a site in Springfield, Tennessee, where the plane will be reconstructed.
Investigators don’t know why the pilot circled the airport before the disaster, he said. He stated that the plane’s approach was perpendicular to the freeway when it crashed.
The NTSB will release a preliminary report in about ten days. The complete report will take around nine months.
