One big question is what caused the single turbo prop to fail -- if it failed at all.

11:19 AM EST on Tuesday, March 29, 2005

BY MICHAEL CORKERY and TOM MOONEY
Journal Staff Writers

WARWICK -- Jay Strauss has flown for 50 years and when he saw the picture of the wrecked plane in the newspaper, he suspected one thing: the engine had stopped running before it hit the ground.

Amid the contorted metal cabin and the crushed wing, Strauss and other pilots noted yesterday that the plane's propeller blade stood tall and untwisted.

A rotating propeller, Strauss said, would have been bent as it struck the ground. "It appears that the engine was not running," Strauss said yesterday.

The more vexing question is what might have caused the single turbo prop to fail -- if it failed. Jeffrey Jacober did not mention a mechanical failure in radio communications on his approach into the Pennsylvania airport, investigators have said. Federal investigators continue their probe, which they said could take up to a year.

"Sometimes things are obvious, but there's much more involved to this," said Strauss, 72, who was a mentor to Jacober and shared hangar space with him at T.F. Green Airport.

Strauss is an uncle of Jacober's wife, Karen, who died along with her husband and 15 year-old son, Eric, in the weekend plane crash in Pennsylvania. "I am devastated," he said.

Also killed were Gregg Weingeroff, his wife, Dawn and their son Leland, 10 -- all of Providence.

Jacober was flying his five passengers from Naples Municipal Airport in Florida to an airport in Benner Township, Pa., near Penn State University, when his plane -- a Pilatus PC-12/45 -- crashed on Saturday afternoon.

The Swiss-made aircraft, which uses a Canadian-made Pratt & Whitney engine, has come under scrutiny by transportation officials recently.

Journal photo / Bob Breidenbach

Jay Strauss, uncle of Karen Jacober, who died in Saturday's plane crash, stands in Hangar 1 at T.F. Green Airport yesterday next to his Beechcraft plane. Strauss, 72, shared hangar space with Jeffrey Jacober, who was the pilot in the weekend accident in Pennsylvania.

In January 2004, the National Transportation Safety Board recommended engine modifications to the plane, noting that deterioration of a bearing had caused engine failure.

The safety board recommendation reported 17 similar engine failures worldwide.

Six months later, the Federal Aviation Administration issued an airworthiness directive, ordering design improvements to ward off corrosion of control shafts for the flaps.

And on March 1, the FAA published another airworthiness directive calling for inspections of windshield deicing wires because improperly sized wires could overheat.

Last December, a New Hampsire man landed the same kind of Pilatus on an Indiana highway after experiencing engine trouble.

Thomas Bosshard, CEO of Pilatus Business Aircraft Ltd., a Colorado-based subsidiary of Pilatus, said transportation officials incorrectly reported the number of engine failures.

Bosshard said only one case involved a bearing failure. The other 16 cases involved other parts of the aircraft.

Concerning the directives with the plane's flaps and wiring, Bosshard said the company had already reached agreement with U.S. and Swiss transportation officials to correct the deficiencies and had planes brought in for service.

Bosshard said there are about 520 of the aircraft in service worldwide; about 350 of them in North America.

The Pilatus was at least the third plane that Jacober owned over his career, Strauss said. Jacober bought the plane in 2003 and recently had it serviced, Strauss said.

The plane was serviced at the Atlas Pilatus Center Inc., in Manchester, N.H.

A lawyer representing the company, Gary Arber, said that since the crash was under investigation, Atlas would not provide any maintenance history of the plane.

With a price tag exceeding $2 million, the Pilatus stands in an elite class of single-engine airplanes.

It has a pressurized cabin that allows it to fly at higher altitudes and avoid inclement weather. Its top speed is 276 mph. Its range, on a full tank of gas, is about 1,841 miles.

In the event of an engine failure, the Pilatus has the ability to glide for miles.

For every 1,000 feet of alitude that the plane drops, it can glide for 2.4 miles, said Phil Rosenbaum, president of the Pilatus Owner's and Pilot's Association.

By that measure, a plane descending from 10,000 feet can glide for 24 miles, he said. "That's an extremely long glide ratio," said Rosenbaum of Austin, Texas.

By most accounts, Jacober was a skilled pilot with more than a decade of flying time, including many long-distance trips to as far away as the British West Indies, where he was building a house.

"The airplane was a major part of his being," Strauss said.

Strauss said Jacober shared ownership of the plane, which was registered to J2W Aviation LLC in Providence.

Jacober held a private pilot certificate allowing him to fly single-engine and multi-engine aircraft.

The Federal Aviation Administration had no record of him ever being involved in any incident or accident.

According to the flight plan Jacober filed with the FAA on Saturday, he planned to travel the approximately 1,030 miles -- from Florida to Pennsylvania -- without stopping to refuel.

That distance appears well within in the range of the Pilatus PC-12/45 when flying on a full tank of gas.

Strauss said all pilots must calculate the weight of passengers and luggage when determining how much fuel to take on board. Jacober had no doubt made these calculations dozens of times.

Jacober was a volunteer pilot for Angel Flight Northeast, which flew patients, often living in remote parts of the region, to big city hospitals for treatment.

A spokeswoman for the nonprofit Angel Flight, said Jacober had made 80 such trips over the past six years.

"He was flying a flight a month. That is so extraordinary," said Angel Flight spokeswoman Amy Camerlin.

Angel Flight requires a pilot to log at least 300 hours of flying time in a particular plane to become a volunteer, Camerlin said.

Jacober had flown routes between Baltimore and Boston and upstate New York and Boston for Angel Flight.

Mindy Wachtenheim, a family friend, said he had even flown his new plane back from Switzerland with two friends who are pilots.

Strauss said Jacober had made several trips to University Park Airport in Benner Township, Pa., near Penn State, where his son Michael is a captain on the lacrosse team.

Strauss, who has also flown into that airport to see his grandson play ice hockey at Penn State, said there is no control tower there.

Jacober was using instrument flight rules when he was lost off the radar, outside the airport, federal officials said.

At the time, skies were overcast with no trace of precipitation and winds of about 6 mph.

The fatal crash has rippled through many communities -- not least of which is the musty, concrete building on the edge of T.F. Green Airport, known as Hangar 1.

That's where Jacober parked his plane, next to Strauss' single-engine Beechcraft. "It doesn't get any closer," Strauss, his eyes reddening, said of his relationship with Jacober.

Strauss advised Jacober when he first got interested in flying. Both men are Angel Flight volunteers who once flew together on a medical mission to Presque Isle, Maine. "He was very cautious," Strauss said.

Strauss said that he and Jacober never viewed flying as merely sport. "It's an avocation." Strauss has flown his own single-engine plane to Europe, following a northern route over Canada, Greenland and Iceland.

Strauss said Jacober relished the freedom of owning his own plane, but he also understood the responsibility of flying, especially with passengers on board.

Since the crash, people have come up to Strauss and asked what he thought happened.

"I honestly don't know," he said.