General's plane crashed into Harford County field seconds after taking off in fatal July flight, report says
Aug. 8—Army Maj. Gen. Anthony Wayne Potts had spoken with an aircraft mechanic while preparing a single-engine plane to fly last month, moments before it took off and plunged into a Harford County field, investigators wrote in a new report on the fatal crash.
At the Harford County Airport in Churchville, Potts had told the mechanic he was preparing for a cross-country flight and was going to fly the propeller plane that evening in the airport traffic pattern, according to the preliminary report released Tuesday by the National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the July 25 crash.
The 59-year-old general from Aberdeen took off in the Piper PA-28R-200 about 15 minutes after the exchange at the airport, according to the federal agency's report. His plane crashed seconds later into a hay field in between Old Level Road and Route 155 in Churchville.
Potts, an executive at an Aberdeen Proving Ground office that handles the Army's tactical communications equipment, was declared dead at the site of the wreckage, about a half mile away from the airport's departure runway. Both the NTSB and the Federal Aviation Administration are investigating the crash.
At a news conference the night of the crash, Level Volunteer Fire Company President Sandra Gallion said first responders were able to find the wreckage in the open field at about 7:30 p.m. after an "intense search." Gallion said there were no injuries on the ground other than the pilot, identified the next day as Potts, who is not named in the NTSB report.
Emergency responders said that night the plane had crashed in Havre De Grace, though the precise location released Tuesday is in nearby Churchville.
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In Tuesday's report, investigators wrote that a witness said he heard Potts' airplane begin its takeoff from the runway shortly after 7 p.m. and heard the engine whir for about 45 seconds before he heard the "sound of impact," the report says. Another witness said the plane was flying extremely low with its wings "perpendicular to the ground." Neither witness heard telltale indicators of engine trouble, such as backfiring or sputtering.
The NTSB report says Potts' plane had a new propeller and interior installed the day before the crash, during the aircraft's annual inspection. Maintenance personnel told investigators that the airplane began to move, even with full braking applied, while running at maximum power during a test after the new propeller was installed. The fatal flight was the first time the plane went airborne after the inspection, the report says.
Investigators retained the plane's wreckage, which they detailed in the preliminary report. It noted that they found "no anomalies" involving the engine that could have caused problems, but said the in-cockpit lever that controls the airplane's flaps was "found in the fully extended position."
Investigators confirmed that the handle had been placed at its maximum limit before the crash by measuring a drive chain.
Flaps, the adjustable devices on airplane wings that regulate their shape for takeoff and landing, are usually extended incrementally when pilots take off, said Robert Katz, a longtime pilot and flight instructor who evaluates aviation crashes nationwide.
"You never take off with full flaps," Katz said, noting that doing so could cause a plane to stall or drop altitude.
The federal transportation safety board's preliminary report did not make any conclusions as to how the plane ultimately crashed. The board aims to release a full, more detailed report — including the probable cause and safety recommendations — within one to two years, as it normally would for any crash it investigates.