Two killed in midair collision of Cessna, floatplane

It was supposed to be an after-work flight class for a 25-year-old novice, piloting a plane in which he just bought part-ownership. Like the pilot, the instructor also was a young Boeing engineer.

But at 5:45 p.m. yesterday, for reasons that remain unclear, their Cessna 152 suddenly smashed into a floatplane getting ready to land at Renton's municipal airport.

The Cessna nose-dived into the roof of a vacant Renton elementary school, killing the pilot and his 26-year-old instructor.

The pilot and four passengers in the floatplane survived the midair collision. The pilot expertly skidded the plane onto a grassy strip at the airport despite two damaged pontoons.

The Cessna pilot had bought into the 12-member Subsonics Flight Club, which owns the plane, a month ago, said flight club President Robert Howard. Authorities did not release the victims' identities last night.

"I tell you what, my stomach feels like a bowling ball right now," Howard said.

The Cessna crashed through the roof of Kennydale Elementary School. No one was at the school, which is being demolished.

Investigators from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) were at the scene to begin an investigation expected to take months.

Without assigning blame, NTSB investigator Tom Little noted that the Cessna was heading west — directly into the sun — just before the crash.

Both planes were in contact with the airport tower, but the investigation will determine the extent of that contact, Little said. Neither plane had, nor were required to have, black-box data recorders.

The Cessna pilot, a recent University of Washington graduate, had logged just four or five prior flights before yesterday, said Howard, a retired United Airlines employee. The flight instructor — also a member of the flight club — had extensive experience, he said.

The Cessna, built in 1974, had undergone an overhaul in May, Howard said. "The airplane was in absolute perfect running condition," he said.

The crash was visible for miles around. Jim Blundred was out on his deck nearby, holding his 3-year-old daughter and watching planes take off, when he saw the Cessna slam into the floatplane.

"It looked like they were coming close, then boom," Blundred said. "I was thinking, somebody is going to die."

He drove to the site intending to help, but plastic tarps used for the school's demolition stopped him. He also was concerned about the rich smell of gasoline coming from the plane.

The floatplane, a DeHavilland DHC-2 Beaver built in 1958, is registered to an Edmonds company, which did not return calls last night. Its flight plan originated in Barkley Sound, B.C., for a landing at Renton, said FAA duty officer Mike O'Connor. The Renton airport is on Lake Washington and accommodates floatplanes.

The crash left both pontoons askew, requiring the pilot to circle the Renton tower so airport officials could assess damage before it landed.

That pilot, Fred Bahr, told KING-TV there was little warning before the collision.

"All of a sudden I just saw a red and white flash just go under us, and that's all I saw," he said. "Just a momentary flash of red and white."

The impact "literally just relocated the floats to the right. They were at about a 30-degree angle," he added. "It's kind of strange when you look outside there to see a float and you don't see one."

At that point, floatplane passenger Lee McEachron told KING, "the pilot made the decision it was not safe to land on the water, so we opted to put it on the grass. Everybody got out fine."

Lt. Greg Straume of the Boeing Fire Department, which responded to the crash, said the passengers were grateful to touch land as he helped them out of the plane.

"They moved off the plane, the five of them lickety-split," he said.

Howard, the flight club president, choked up as he heard that his fellow club members had died. He said the student pilot's family was devastated when he told them what happened. "I'm so sad for these guys and their families," he said. "We're a really small, close-knit group who own this airplane. We try to learn to fly and to fly right."

Jonathan Martin: 206-464-2605 or jmartin@seattletimes.com

Brian Alexander: 206-464-2349 or balexander@seattletimes.com

Seattle Times staff reporter David Heath and research editor Katherine Long and news researcher Miyoko Wolf contributed to this report.