ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, December 24, 1996 TAG: 9612240096
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NARROWS
SOURCE: MARK CLOTHIER STAFF WRITER
Investigators removed the remains of six crewmen Monday and recovered the cockpit-voice and data recorders from the DC-8 cargo plane that slammed into East River Mountain on Sunday night.
The crew made a distress call to air traffic services before crashing into the fog-shrouded mountainside at 6:06 p.m., said Bob McIntosh of the National Transportation Safety Board.
The plane, cleared to fly at 13,000 to 15,000 feet, was in an emergency descent and passing below 8,000 feet, its crew reported just before the crash.
The 29-year-old Airborne Express DC-8-63F was empty of cargo and 20 minutes into a flight to Wilmington, Ohio, from Greensboro, N.C., when it crashed in freezing rain three miles southwest of Narrows, a town of about 2,000 in Giles County, which borders West Virginia. The plane struck the mountain at the 3,400-foot elevation.
The flight was a test of routine maintenance that included modifying and standardizing the cockpit and aircraft systems and installing a cargo handling system, according to Airborne Express.
Monday afternoon, the overnight delivery company named the six people killed in the crash. Five of the men worked for ABX Air Inc., an Airborne Express affiliate that operates a hub and sorting operation in Wilmington. The three-member flight crew included: Garth Avery, 48, of Dayton, Ohio; William "Keith" Leming, 37, of Lebanon, Ohio; and Terry Waelti, 52, of Wilmington.
The three passengers included two ABX maintenance employees: Kenneth Athey, 39, of Winston-Salem, N.C., and Edward "Bruce" Goettsch, 48, of Wilmington.
The sixth person was Brian Scully, 36, an avionics technician for Triad International Maintenance Corp., or TIMCO, in Greensboro, N.C.
Scully, of Walkertown, N.C., specialized in cockpit electronics systems for TIMCO, which repairs and services airplanes and converts them from passenger to cargo use.
TIMCO had been working on the DC-8 since June and recently finished configuring it to ABX specifications, according to ABX community relations manager Rita Carey.
By 11 a.m. Monday, the slightly mangled, blaze-orange flight recorders were en route by helicopter to Roanoke, where a plane waited to fly them to Washington, D.C., for study. Officials declined to speculate on a cause for the crash.
Seattle-based Airborne Express ranks third nationally in overnight deliveries, behind Federal Express and United Parcel Service.
The plane's impact obliterated 3 acres of the Appalachian hardwoods Bob Gilvary grows on his 950-acre tree farm.
Gilvary spent Monday morning at the crash site with investigators. The Blacksburg man described it as ``5 acres of utter devastation.
"I've seen some wrecks before, but nothing this size," he said. "Nothing with the absolute force of this impact. There was a big gouge in the earth 30 feet wide, 5 to 10 feet deep."
Gilvary said NTSB officials told him the gouge was caused by one of the wings hitting the ground. He said the impact sent debris 500 feet forward and 100 feet in either direction.
The DC-8's four jet engines dislodged on impact and came to rest about 1,000 feet from the initial impact point.
"What really stood out was the disintegration," Gilvary said. "Aside from the fuselage pieces, there was nothing bigger than 1 foot around. It was as close to being pulverized as metal can get. Probably 3 acres of forest were just wiped out; trees as big as 3 feet in diameter."
Stan Akers can see the crown of East River Mountain from his yard near Wolf Creek. He was crossing it Sunday evening to let his Dalmatian, Sparky, out of the garage.
"You could hear one of the jet's engines was sputtering, and I thought, `That dude's in trouble.'
"Up to this point, I could only hear it; the clouds covered it. Then it broke through, and I could see it had its landing lights on. It made a steep descent right to the ground; just like if you threw a rock and it arches. It had done quit flying.
"It hit the ground and exploded; a big mushroom fire hundreds and hundreds of feet in diameter for about 20 or 30 seconds, and then it went out."
Akers was one of the nearby residents who helped lead rescuers to the crash site.
George Thorn, 44, felt the plane approach from his home a mile from Akers' place.
"It was rocking the house," he said. "Felt like when a train goes by on a track, you know how it shakes your house? But this was louder than that and shook a whole lot."
Thorn said the plane, as it passed over his house, made a loud noise, "like they were trying to start the engine. Then it sounded like it blowed up.
"The wife was like, `What in the world is that?' Then we all ran out on the porch and looked. Then it made kind of a circle like it was going to land before it went up there and hit the mountain.
"It hit right where we all deer hunt. Like a big bomb. It went off like one of those big old atomic bombs and lit the whole sky up."
Afterward, Thorn said, he took a four-wheel-drive vehicle, water and blankets and drove up and helped clear the logging road that is the only path to the crash site.
"It smelled like diesel fuel," he said. "It was dripping out of the trees. It got all over me. Wasn't much to see, just bits and pieces and fire everywhere. I hollered to see if anyone survived, but nobody answered."
Staff writer Lisa K. Garcia and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
LENGTH: Long : 113 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. AP ``It was as close to being pulverized as metalby CNBcan get,'' said Bob Gilvary, who owns the land where the DC-8 cargo
jet crashed. Gilvary spent Monday morning at the site with
investigators. color
2. GENE DALTON STAFF A Giles County deputy sheriff and an NTSB
investigator carry a recovered flight recorder to the base of East
River Mountain. color
3. ALAN KIM STAFF The impact obliterated 3 acres of the Appalachian
hardwoods Bob Gilvary grows on his 950-acre tree farm. color
4. chart - Airborne Express Flight 827 STAFF KEYWORDS: FATALITY MGR