No distress calls came from pilot of vintage plane before it crashed in Norco
There was no distress call from the pilot of the vintage aircraft to the control tower Monday, April 22, in the minutes between when the plane took off and when it crashed into a Norco prison yard, a review of radio traffic showed.
But starting about 7 minutes after the N9MB Northrop Flying Wing took off Monday from Chino Airport’s 26-Right runway, there was no response to several calls of “Northrop niner-mike-bravo, Chino tower,” according to audio available Tuesday on the LiveATC.net website.
The pilot, a 51-year-old-man, died when the restored plane, originally built in 1945 according to Federal Aviation Administration records, crashed into the yard of the California Rehabilitation Center.
The pilot had not been fully identified as of Tuesday afternoon by the Riverside County Coroner’s Office.
The bright-yellow plane, which was destroyed, was owned by the Planes of Fame Air Museum in Chino. It was the last remaining of the four Northrop N9M-series flying wings, with “pusher” prop engines. It had the serial number 04, according to FAA records.
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The audio file begins at noon, and the plane was cleared for takeoff shortly after the two-minute mark. The first tower call to the plane without a response was at about the 9-1/2 minute mark, or a bit more than seven minutes after takeoff. The plane was reported down shortly after noon.
“There was no hint from the pilot that something happened,” said Robert Katz, a Dallas-based commercial pilot and certified flight instructor who has been flying since 1981. “What we are hearing is perfectly routine, normal (radio) traffic, and we don’t hear any distress coming from the airplane.”
The exchanges include clearance for takeoff, advisories about other aircraft in the area, and a reminder to the pilot to switch on the aircraft’s transponder — none of that out of the ordinary, said Katz, who reviewed the audio.
“Either something catastrophic happened on that airplane, or the pilot became incapacitated. That’s what I’m thinking, Katz said.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said one inmate got scratches from the incident, but no prisoners or staff were seriously hurt. The plane did not hit any buildings on the 98-acre medium-security prison, although some outdoor exercise equipment was damaged.
A National Transportation and Safety Board inspector was at the scene of the crash Tuesday, a spokesman for the agency said.
The NTSB will examine the aircraft and the scene and work to remove it, said spokesman Keith Holloway. Investigators will also request maintenance records, the pilot’s flight and medical history, and gather witness accounts and radar data, he said.
He said the crash area had been contained and there was no issue with working in the prison yard to gather evidence.
The N9Ms were one-third scale test aircraft built during Northrop Aircraft’s efforts to develop a long-range heavy bomber based on the radical design during World War II and the early Cold War.
By 1950, projects had been canceled for both a jet and an earlier prop version of the full-size bomber. The design was later incorporated in the Northrop B-2 Spirit “stealth” bomber developed for the Air Force in the late 1980s.
The NMNB that crashed Monday was bought in the 1950s by Planes of Fame founder Edward T. Maloney. It was eventually restored with an estimated 20,000 hours of volunteer work over 13 years.
The restored version of the craft first flew in 1994, and the museum said it had been flown several hundred hours since then. It was to have been one of the featured aircraft in the Planes of Fame Air Show in Chino on May 4 and 5.
Susan Fracol, who witnessed the crash Monday and said she knew the pilot, said the flight was a rehearsal for the air show.
Museum director of marketing and development Harry Geier said Tuesday the air show would not be canceled.
“We are all very saddened by the loss of the pilot,” he said by phone. He said plans were still being worked on when asked if there would be any kind of tribute.