Red Cotton Shop Towel Clogged Fuel Line, Caused 2017 Plane Crash that Killed Famed Racer Ted Christopher, NTSB Finds
Pieces of a red cotton shop towel caught in a fuel valve caused the small airplane carrying famed Connecticut race car driver Ted Christopher to crash in September 2017, killing him and the plane’s pilot.
The blockage caused a “total loss of engine power” that, combined with the plane’s low cruising altitude, left the plane’s pilot — Christopher’s longtime friend Charles Dundas — little time to troubleshoot and few options for forced landing sites, according to a final report on the crash issued Tuesday by the National Transportation Safety Board.
The pair were traveling in a Mooney M20C from Robertson Field Airport in Plainville to Westhampton Beach, N.Y., on Long Island, when the plane crashed on Sept. 16, 2017.
They took off at about 12:30 p.m. and were picked up by U.S. Air Force radar until just after 12:50 p.m., when radar contact was lost about one mile northwest of the crash site in North Branford, investigators said.
A few minutes later, the plane “struck 75-foot tall pine trees in a steep descending altitude before coming to rest up against trees in a nose down position on its right side” with its landing gears down — only about 1,500 feet from an open field where investigators believe Dundas was trying to conduct a forced landing, according to the report.
An examination of the plane's propeller found no evidence of rotational score and two blades undamaged, indicating it had lost power at the time of impact, investigators said.
The NTSB found evidence that fuel was in both tanks at the time the plane crashed, but a further examination of the fuel system revealed air would not pass through the fuel selector valve when it was set to the left fuel tank position, which it was at the time of the crash, the report found.
When investigators took the system apart, they found the red fibers consistent with a typical shop towel in that valve. The NTSB also discovered the remnants of a homemade PVC pipe tool in the wreckage that investigators believe was designed to manipulate the fuel selector between the left and right tanks.
Dundas might have attempted to use that homemade tool to change the selector to the right tank when the engine first lost power but was unable to make it work, potentially because it broke and failed, the report suggests.
The airplane's maintenance logs were not found, so the NTSB was not able to determine when the shop towel could have been introduced to the fuel system, according to the report.
But it also is possible Dundas simply did not have time to try to troubleshoot because the plane was only flying at altitudes between 900 to 1,300 feet, investigators said.
Dundas had flown to Plainville earlier that morning to pick up Christopher without any reported problems and the two men had flown together for more than 10 years, including many times along that same flight path.
Investigators discovered the 81-year-old pilot’s medical certificate had been denied 10 years before the crash and never re-issued, but they determined his health likely did not contribute to the crash. Toxicology found no alcohol or illicit drugs in his system at the time of the crash.
Christopher was 59 when he died and had raced for nearly 35 years in Connecticut, establishing himself as a legendary driver and personality known most often as “TC” or simply, “The King.”
He was the all-time winningest driver at Stafford Motor Speedway and Thompson Speedway and was the third-winningest driver all-time on the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour, where he won the 2008 series championship. He was also the 2001 NASCAR Whelen All-American Series National Champion.
In early 2018, Christopher’s twin brother Mike Christopher and widow Quinn Christopher decided to continue to run his specialty transmission repair business in Plainville, M&T Enterprises.
Zach Murdock can be reached at [email protected].
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