Witnesses feared the worst moments before a fatal plane crash in August 2017 involving a California man who was on his way to Madras for the total solar eclipse.
Several people watched as the plane banked to the left with its wings perpendicular to the ground like it was in an airshow, but then dove straight down toward a canyon near the Madras Airport, according to statements in a final report released last week by the National Transportation Safety Board.
Flames and a plume of smoke rose from the canyon crash site. The pilot, Mark Rich, 58, of Menlo Park, California, died in the crash. His single-engine Wheeler Express, a plane that he built, was destroyed.
Griffin Deitz, a witness who was rock climbing in the area during the crash, told a safety board investigator the plane was unable to pull out of a dive.
“I saw the plane disappear behind some rocks that blocked my view of the south side of the canyon,” Deitz said, “and then I saw a massive fireball.”
Several witness statements led the safety board to conclude Rich failed to maintain adequate speed while attempting to land, which caused the plane to stall. He was then unable to pull up from a near-vertical descent at an altitude too low to recover.
The final report detailed the circumstances leading to the fatal crash at 1:52 p.m. Aug. 19, 2017.
Rich made a reservation at the Madras Airport to arrive at 2 p.m. Aug. 19 and leave Aug. 21, the day of the total solar eclipse. He planned to camp in Madras and participate in Oregon Solarfest, a gathering at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds celebrating the eclipse.
The Madras Airport used a temporary air traffic control service to handle the 412 planes that were scheduled to fly in and out for the eclipse — the most traffic ever at the airport.
Each pilot flying to Madras was following a “Notice to Airmen” that instructed them on how to safely land during the busy time, according to the safety board report.
Rich, who was flying in from San Carlos, California, was instructed to perform a “Cove Entry,” which had him fly north over the Cove Palisades State Park toward Lake Simtustus Resort, then continue east to the airport.
Rich checked in with air traffic control above the state park and was told to report his position when he was over the resort. Several minutes later, after other traffic departed the airport, the air traffic controller modified Rich’s approach, sending him to Runway 34.
Rich reported his position, but that was the last contact he made with air traffic control.
“The controller cleared him to land and observed a plume of smoke shortly thereafter,” safety board investigator Zoe Keliher wrote in the final report.
Keliher visited the crash site on a slope of the canyon about one mile from the runway. In the final report, she wrote the site had “freshly severed tree limbs adjacent to the main wreckage.”
The plane was destroyed and the cabin was completely consumed by fire, she wrote.
Patty Halstead, who was playing golf near the airport during the crash, told Keliher she saw the plane make its approach to the runway when all of a sudden it began to pull up.
“It continued to pull up as if it were going to make of those loop de loop tricks that planes make when they are in an airshow,” Halstead said. “I remember saying out loud, ‘No, don’t do that. You don’t have room. You are too low to do that.’”
Halstead watched as Rich’s plane went behind a tree line.
“There was a few seconds from the time I lost sight of the plane that I had time to think, ‘OK, no explosion or smoke. He pulled it up,’” Halstead said. “But then I saw the smoke plume to the south of our location.”
The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office initially reported two people had died in the crash because the reservation at the Madras Airport said two people would be arriving in the plane.
Rich’s family friends said Rich’s daughter, Michelle, had planned to go on the trip but was unable to.
Rich built the Wheeler Express plane in 2002 and would regularly take his family on trips. He reported 612 hours of total flight time, according to the final report.
His wife, Laura Rich, told the safety board her husband got his license to fly 29 years ago and did aerobatic training to know how to come out of dives.
Rich had worked at Google, DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) and Atheros, a semiconductor manufacturing company, before recently becoming vice president of Connected Fleet for Airbus, his wife said.
Laura Rich described her husband as very calm and brilliant.
Friends and family remember Rich as a Renaissance man, who had many interests outside of work, including hiking, traveling and flying his Wheeler Express.
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