Cause of plane crash still unknown
By SHARON KERR Staff Writer

Newsboy photo/Charles Kerr JASPER COUNTY EMERGENCY CORPS members start placing booms around the plane wreckage on Toledo Bend.

Emergency Corps volunteers compared search and recovery efforts for the plane that crashed in Toledo Bend Lake last week to looking for pieces of the shuttle.

A small private plane with three people aboard nose-dived into the Texas side of the reservoir shortly after 4 p.m. April 22.

According to Karen Stevenson of the Sabine County Chamber of Commerce, who was one of the first on the scene, startled fishermen reported that the plane popped out of low clouds, the engine cut off, and the plane plunged nose first into the lake. They were able to identify the location well enough that searchers were able to go to the site and begin recovery efforts immediately.

The Jasper County Emergency Corps had two boats and crews on the lake by about 6 p.m. Tuesday night. Robert McWhorter manned the JCEC command center on shore.

Operations were staged at the Indian Mounds Recreation Area boat ramp east of Hemphill. JCEC was joined by boats and crews from the Sabine River Authority, game wardens and the Sabine County sheriff's office.

Newsboy photo/Sharon Kerr MEMBERS OF THE Jasper County Emergency Corps launch their boats at Toledo Bend after Tuesday's plane crash into the lake.Three died in the plane crash.

Sabine County Judge Charles Watson and Emergency Coordinator Gordon Thibodeaux assisted with shore operations.

DPS trooper Beau Clark coordinated the efforts at the scene that night and the next day, until officials from the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) and NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) arrived and assumed command.

Tuesday operations

The lake was flat calm when search and recovery began Tuesday night. Wreckage and some remains were recovered immediately, including an unidentified piece of the plane about four-feet long with the identification number.

The pilot's wallet, a passenger's suitcase, and some personal belongings were also recovered, allowing authorities to identify the plane and occupants.

The pilot was Daniel McIntire, 54, of Humble and passengers George McFadden, 67, of New York and Heather Hardin, 34, of Louisiana. The Cirrus SR22 plane was en route from Tupelo, MI, to Hooks Airport in Spring, and had already been reported overdue before the crash.

Searchers sorted recovered items into three categories: parts of the plane, personal items, and some remains, which were transported in ice chests and given into the care of undertaker John "Squeaky" Starr.

Boats deployed oil-field booms to try to contain the spreading debris field. The plane essentially disintegrated from the impact. By 8 p.m. and with winds from a rising storm, the plastic and foam parts were already far from the impact site and it was clear there were no survivors.

With lightning flashes everywhere, searchers called off recovery efforts until the next day.

Resuming the search

JCEC members met with other searchers at the Sabine County sheriff's office at 9 a.m. Wednesday and had the boats back in the water shortly after that.

Under the direction of Billy Williford, the JCEC was prepared to put divers in the water at the crash site to recover remains, but they were instructed not to dive until both the FAAand NTSB representatives were on the scene.

Each JCEC boat had underwater cameras that were lowered on a line to about 40-feet. Debris from the impact was spread across the bottom in about a 100-foot circle; no remains were sighted.

FAA and NTSB officials spent several hours looking at the video-feed as the boats drifted over the site, trying to maintain a search pattern against current and wind.

Even these two officials, who are experts in small plane crashes, could not identify most of the pieces they were looking at. Most were only a few inches long.

NTSB had hoped it would be possible to recover a circuit board that could reconstruct the flight path that led to the crash, or the engine that might yield clues as to why the engine quit before the crash, as the fishermen reported to first responders.

At 3 p.m. the two federal officials announced that they had seen enough, and that the emergency corps had fulfilled its purpose, which was to rescue or recover human remains; the rest will be up to the insurance company if they want hire professionals to salvage parts or investigate the site further.

Other boats recovered additional floating debris and remains a mile or two north of the site.

Continuing efforts

Sabine County Sheriff Tom Maddox met with Williford to request that the JCEC bring at least one boat and crew to continue the search Thursday and Friday.

Both men agreed that there would be little to find in the way of remains, but they needed to continue to search for the sake of family members who, by then, had arrived in Hemphill.