A preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is shedding light on a small airplane crash in Tennessee in June that killed one person and badly injured another.
The aircraft, a Piper J3C-65, crashed near a private airstrip in Dunlap on the afternoon of June 24. According to WTVC-TV in Chattanooga, local police identified the occupants as owner Wendall Trimble, 79, of Dunlap, and Ashish Sircar, 55, of Florida. Trimble was killed while Sircar suffered serious injuries.
According to the NTSB report, Sircar, the passenger, told investigators he had just recently started flight training and was taking another training flight the day of the crash. He and Trimble were initially at a different airstrip about 7 miles away from the crash site, he said, but he could not recall departing that location, the flight, or anything about the accident.
The airplane came to a stop in a mostly upright position in a hay field about 40 feet off the airstrip in Dunlap. There was an 8-inch deep ground scar directly in front of the aircraft’s engine.
The NTSB said investigators observed damage to the aircraft’s left-wing leading edge, with tree foliage found underneath the damaged skin. The foliage was consistent with broken tree limbs in the area with yellow paint transfer. Investigators also saw a puncture hole through the top and bottom of the aircraft’s left wing and at the outboard side of the left aileron.
An examination found that there were no “mechanical malfunctions or failures” of the engine that “would have precluded normal operation.”
The NTSB is continuing to investigate.
