FAA and NTSB to investigate cause of plane crash after volunteers extract aircraft from wooded area

The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the cause of a small plane crash that left a pilot stuck in the trees for nearly an hour in a wooded area of Mukilteo, the owner of the plane said.

OWNER OF PLANE:

KIRO 7 News spoke with Richard Newman, who owns the plane involved in the crash.

He’s also the president of the Puget Sound Flyers Club, a non-profit organization that supports and educates the youth about aviation. He has 51 years’ worth of experience as a pilot.

Asad Ali is part of his non-profit, he said.

Newman said Ali took off from Seattle Paine Field International Airport in a 1975 Cessna 150 M Model to train on February 16.

“He (Ali) was finishing up his training and getting ready for his examination,” Newman shared.

He flew to Port Angeles and on his way back to Everett, he experienced sudden issues at about 3,000 feet in the air around 5:30 p.m.

“He started suffering some engine power loss, sputtering,” said Newman. “His engine failed entirely.”

The plane crashed in a wooded area at the Japanese Gulch in Mukilteo, near Seattle-Paine Field International Airport, Newman told KIRO 7 News.

EXTRACTION:

Newman told KIRO 7 News that he and 12 volunteers extracted the plane after hiking nearly a mile to the crash site.

Volunteers prepped for the extraction on Tuesday and extracted the plane the following day.

“It went surprisingly fast yesterday because we did have people who had expertise and knew how to take apart an airplane,” said Newman. “Everything’s taken out. There’s not even a nut left over there. No bolts. That’s the aviation community. Everybody wants to help each other.”

On Thursday, Newman was able to organize his plane’s parts.

While he is grateful that his student is alive, he is filled with emotions after seeing his plane’s damage.

“I refurbished this airplane with my own two hands, and you cry. You do cry because you put a lot of work into something like this,” he said.

It was no easy task for them to extract the plane.

Volunteers had to figure out a way to pull the small aircraft out of the tough terrain for nearly a mile.

“Blackberry brambles, fallen trees, sand, mud, nothing to get your footing on. Sucked my boots off several times,” Newman described the landscape.

Jennifer Iiams, a volunteer, said, “It was crazy. Definitely an opportunity you don’t come by often. It’s not an easy process. Just the wooded area it was in, with the rain and the mud it created, quite the interesting environment to pull it out of.”

To make this extraction possible, a volunteer, who has years of experience with creating trails in parks, cut down a number of trees and created a 50-foot makeshift roadway.

“That was a god sent. Because these trails people, they spend a lot of time grooming and maintaining the trails up there and they knew exactly what to do, and how to do it,” Newman said. “We wouldn’t be here today without them. There’s no way we can do that. We didn’t have the man power.”

Iiams said, “It was very essential. The mud is very thick. Several of us had our shoes pulled off at times when stepping into that mud. So having that nice thick pathway, created a very sturdy foundation for us to work in.”

A volunteer was able to use a quad to pull the large pieces of the plane back to the airport.

The owner said the quad was another critical tool that allowed volunteers to extract the plane in hours, instead of days.

Without the quad, Newman said it would have added, “Three days because we would be picking up the airplane steadily, hopping out. We would probably be out there today doing it again, getting it out.”

The plane is totaled, Newman said, however, he believes around $5,000 worth of parts can still be used.

“The rutter here is in perfect shape,” he said. “This flap didn’t receive various scratches so we’ll be removing that.”

PLANE PREP FOR FAA AND NTSB:

Newman said he has been speaking with the FAA and NTSB since the crash last month.

He said both agencies will arrive at Seattle-Paine Field International Airport to assess the plane’s damage Friday.

Volunteers and Newman were able to put the plane back together close to its original shape ahead of the assessment.

“They’re going to learn something that’s going to help prevent another accident later on,” said Newman.