Probe of Small Plane Crash into Bay-Area Sewer Plant Slowed

Dec. 21, 2006
Once the plane is deemed safe, an investigator from the NTSB will examine it, looking for obvious cracks in the pieces of metal left from the shattered wreckage.

GILROY, Calif. -- Investigators looking into the plane crash that killed three young men from Japan won't be able to get close to the aircraft until today when officials expect it to be decontaminated from the wastewater it plunged into.

Until they can get closer to the plane, the mystery of why the two flight students, Yoshiyuki Kato, 27, and Yasushi Miyata, 38, and their instructor Shoki Haraguchi, 26, crashed into a sewage pond Monday afternoon will linger.

Once the plane is deemed safe, an investigator from the National Transportation Safety Board will examine it, looking for obvious cracks in the pieces of metal left from the shattered wreckage, NTSB spokesman Keith Holloway said.

Gilroy police Sgt. Kurt Svardal said the bodies and the wreckage won't be removed until today because the bottom of the wastewater tank was too slippery Tuesday.

It's unclear how long the men had been in the country and for how long they had been taking flying lessons. But a statement from the flight school where the men got the plane, Nice Air, described the men as "exceptional." Haraguchi had become a familiar face at the airport.

A woman from Nice Air who read the statement to the San Jose Mercury News, a sister paper to the The Argus cried as she said: "Our thoughts and prayers go out to the men and their families. They will be sadly missed by all staff and students."

The trio took off from Reid-Hillview Airport around 1 p.m. They were due back at 5 p.m., but at 3:55 p.m. radar feeds show a plane disappearing from the screen just over Gilroy, miles from the nearest airport.

Air traffic controllers didn't receive calls for help from the plane, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said. Another pilot called an air traffic control center in Oakland to report a plane going down near Gilroy about 4 p.m.

Nice Air officials reported the plane missing Monday afternoon.

The control center contacted Santa Clara County Sheriff's deputies, who searched for the aircraft. They found it about an hour later.

, at about 5 p.m. It was broken apart and the pieces were submerged in a sewage pool at the South County Regional Wastewater Authority's treatment plant.

Near the wreckage, they found a Japanese passport and a flight log.

It took all night to drain the sewage pond, but once it was empty investigators spotted three bodies inside the small plane.

Mercury News Staff Writer Sandra Gonzales contributed to this report.

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