Reports offer more details of single-engine plane crash
Pilot spoke with air-traffic control but was unable to climb to 10,000 feet as instructed, files show
At about 9,000 feet, the pilot of the single-engine airplane knew he was in trouble.
Ice gripped the frame of the aircraft on the evening of Jan. 15 as it flew in dark, overcast skies. Low visibility meant John Laurence Berman could no longer rely on his own eyes to steer the plane. Buffeted by strong winds, he sought help from an air-traffic controller to guide him to the Santa Fe Regional Airport using flight instruments.
The controller told Berman to climb to 10,000 feet. Berman, 60, replied he was unable to maintain altitude and declared an emergency. The final radar return logged the aircraft 300 feet above ground level; Berman’s plane crashed about 8.5 miles south of his destination, in a rugged open space area between Eldorado and N.M. 14.
Those are some of the details contained in reports released by the Santa Fe County Sheriff ’s Office and the National Transportation Safety Board of Berman’s harrowing flight from the Liberal Mid-America Regional Airport in Liberal, Kansas.
The sheriff ’s office has turned over the investigation to the National Transportation Safety Board, which made public a preliminary report of the accident. Federal officials classified Berman’s single-engine aircraft as “experimental” and “amateur-built.” According to an aviation safety report published in October by the Federal Aviation Administration, “amateur-built and other experimental aircraft were involved in almost 25 percent of U.S. fatal general aviation accidents over the past five years and account for an estimated five percent of total general aviation fleet hours.”
According to one deputy’s report, Berman told them he got caught in an ice storm, with the aircraft
pointed northeast when his plane “iced up” and crashed.
Attempts to contact Berman were unsuccessful. A reporter on Thursday asked a University of New Mexico Hospital official to speak with Berman, but no one answered after the call was transferred to his room at the Intensive Care Unit. A hospital official declined to give details on his condition.
Berman, who reports say lives in Richland, Wash., waited in the airplane for three hours amid below-freezing temperatures, his legs broken, according to reports written by sheriff ’s deputies.
The crash occurred around 7:30 p.m. In their report, sheriff ’s deputies wrote they encountered Berman around 10:30 p.m. The temperature was about 18 degrees, with 17 mph winds, a Santa Fe County dispatcher told a deputy.
A search crew composed of members of the Santa Fe County Sheriff ’s Office, New Mexico State Police, the Turquoise Trail Fire Department and the Eldorado Fire Department conducted the hunt for the plane, getting a four-wheel drive truck to navigate the rough terrain, reports say.
Deputies found the Velocity XL-RG aircraft — an experimental, single-engine plane built from a kit — 75 yards away from where it had first struck ground, according to the report.
Slumped over in the cockpit, Berman initially did not respond when personnel announced their presence, the reports say. First responders gave Berman blankets and hand-warmers. He complained of leg and arm pain.
According to sheriff ’s deputies, the airplane’s rear-mounted engine propeller was missing, with pieces 50 yards away from the crash site. Thick ice covered the damaged windshield and wings. Fiberglass body panels and slivers from the propeller lay strew about the terrain. Federal Aviation Administration inspectors at the crash site reported the landing gear was found fully retracted, and the propeller had fragmented during impact.
A half-hour after first responders discovered Berman, medics from the Eldorado Fire Department arrived and removed him from the plane. One deputy wrote he could see Berman’s legs were “deformed and broken.” He was transported to Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center via ambulance, where he was in critical condition and placed in a medically induced coma, according to one deputy’s report.
Two days after the crash, Berman was transported to the University of New Mexico Hospital, according to a sheriff ’s deputy. Berman’s son told the deputy he would be traveling to New Mexico from California to assume care of his father, according to reports.