NTSB finds few clues into Lana'i plane crash
By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Staff Writer
The survivor of a small plane crash June 14 on Lana'i lay seriously injured for more than five hours before a Coast Guard rescue crew found him.
A National Transportation Safety Board preliminary report released yesterday said that the crash occurred at 8:44 p.m. but that the first signal from the plane's emergency beacon was not picked up until 12:30 a.m. June 15, and it was nearly two hours later when a Coast Guard helicopter found the crash site.
Student pilot Matthew Monczynski, 23, a Navy man from Kane'ohe, was killed in the crash. Flight instructor Matt McGurk, 22, also of O'ahu, suffered severe head and leg injuries.
Coast Guard officials said McGurk assisted searchers in finding the wreckage by shining a flashlight on the wrecked Piper Comanche's fuselage. By the time the helicopter rescue crew arrived, McGurk had crawled some distance away from the scene despite his injuries. He was taken to the Queen's Medical Center for treatment.
McGurk has made no statements about the crash to the Federal Aviation Administration or the National Transportation Safety Board, agency officials said. FAA Pacific Region representative Tweet Coleman said it is her understanding that he has been released from the hospital, but she could provide no further information.
NTSB investigator Tealeye Cornejo, in her preliminary report, was unable to shed light on the mysterious events leading to the crash.
She said Monczynski had rented the plane, owned by Mueller Aviation in Honolulu, for an interisland instructional flight. He and McGurk filed a flight plan indicating they were headed for the West Maui-Kapalua Airport, but after leaving Honolulu International Airport at 8 that night, they changed their destination. The plane's flight plan was canceled by radio at 8:41 p.m.
The FAA tracked the plane's change in direction.
"The radar data showed the airplane changed course and flew toward Lana'i on a southerly heading while descending," Cornejo's report said.
Before leaving the Islands at the end of her initial investigation of the crash, Cornejo said she had no information on why the plane failed to fly to the West Maui airport as originally planned, or what caused it to go down on Lana'i.
The report also does not indicate who was at the controls when the plane hit the ground about 8:44 p.m. on a level patch of open dirt near the Kanepu'u ridge, about 4.7 miles northwest of Lana'i Airport. The aircraft appeared to have skidded about 50 feet, hit a 4-foot embankment, and then slid another 200 feet. Both of its wings were ripped off. There were no witnesses.
An inspection of the wreckage indicated there appeared to be no mechanical problems with the plane or its engine.
