A Rockwell International 690B Turbo Commander crashed inverted while circling to land in marginal weather at Tweed New Haven airport in Connecticut, according to a preliminary report by the US National Transportation Safety Board.
The commercial pilot, the single passenger and two people on the ground were killed in the 9 August accident.
The twin-turboprop aircraft (N13622) was built in 1979 and is owned by lessor Ellumax, Flightglobal's Ascend Online database shows.
The NTSB says the flight from Teterboro, New Jersey to New Haven was operated by "a private individual". Instrument meteorological conditions prevailed and the aircraft was being operated on an instrument flight rules flightplan.
When the pilot contacted New Haven, the aircraft was cleared to carry out an instrument landing system approach to runway 02, break off the approach upon visual contact and join a left hand downwind leg to land on the reciprocal runway 20.
It was daylight, the wind was 170e_SDgr at 12kt (22km/h) gusting to 19kt and there was 8/8ths cloud at 900ft (275m), with an estimated visibility beneath it of 17km.
When the pilot reported joining the downwind leg for runway 20,the controller asked him if he would be able to maintain visual contact with the airfield, and the pilot responded "in contact now". That was his last transmission and around 1min later, the aircraft crashed. The NTSB found that the last radar contact showed the aircraft at 800ft, around 6nm north of the runway 20 threshold.
A student pilot witness reported to the NTSB that he was driving east on the Interstate 95 turnpike, when he looked right and saw the aircraft almost inverted in a right roll, diving toward the ground, where it hit houses.
Source: Flight International
