New NTSB report revises cause of plane crash that killed LouCity co-founder, 2 others
More than two years after the National Transportation Safety Board determined faulty wing tips were the focus of a small plane crash in Southern Indiana that killed three people, including a Louisville City FC soccer club co-founder, the agency has made key changes to its findings.
In a revision last week to a 2021 report on the incident, the NTSB said it had determined there was insufficient evidence to conclude the winglets — raised pieces on the end of plane wings that help keep it in control — had caused the crash, which took place about 16 miles north of Louisville on Nov. 30, 2018.
Wayne Estopinal, who co-founded Louisville City FC and managed Jeffersonville-based EstoAir LLC, was killed, along with TEG Architects vice president Sandra Holland Johnson and pilot Andrew Davis. The trio was traveling from Jeffersonville to Chicago in a Cessna 525A jet, which crashed a few minutes after takeoff.
The revised report turns the focus to Davis.
The revision came following a petition for reconsideration of the original November 2021 ruling that found the winglet system had caused the crash due to "asymmetric deployment of the left wing load alleviation system," which caused the jet to roll left before crashing.
Davis tried to regain control of the plane as it rolled, but was unable to stop its descent.
The 2021 ruling also cited six pins within an electrical connector that were curled and two others that weren't aligned, which could have disrupted power to the wingtip extensions. The revised report found the pins could have been damaged during the crash, though the "pre-accident continuity condition of each pin is unknown."
The revised report cites the cause of the crash as the "pilot’s inability to regain airplane control after a left roll that began for reasons that could not be determined based on the available evidence."
"After the autopilot disconnected, the pilot was audibly surprised and did not reduce engine power or deploy the speed brakes. The pilot was not able to regain control before collision with terrain," the report states.
Tamarack Aerospace Group, the company that supplied the winglets at the center of the initial report, pushed back after the initial report was released and filed the petition for reconsideration, arguing the NTSB's conclusions contained “key erroneous findings” and did not take into account additional information provided by Tamarack before publishing the findings.
In a statement last week, company President Jacob Klinginsmith extended condolences to the families of those who were killed and said the company is "very pleased that the NTSB has ... taken steps to correct multiple technical errors in the original investigation."
The full report is available on NTSB's website.
The estates of the three people killed sued Tamarack in the aftermath of the crash, arguing the winglet system "was not reasonably safe as designed."
That lawsuit was settled out of court early last year.
Reach Lucas Aulbach at laulbach@courier-journal.com.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: NTSB revises report on plane crash that killed LouCity's Estopinal
