NTSB probe on Wellstone crash has strong focus on pilots, former investigator says

A former investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said the ongoing probe into the plane crash that killed Sen. Paul Wellstone includes an unusually strong focus on the qualifications of the two pilots.

"It makes you wonder how it will be worked in when the board determines probable cause," said Chuck Leonard, a retired senior investigator who worked on more than 200 NTSB investigations.

The NTSB has established that both pilots on the fatal flight were properly licensed and that the captain, Richard Conry, had passed a proficiency test just two days before the Oct. 25 crash. But the safety board on Friday also paid close attention, in its first major report on the accident, to the cockpit crew's professional shortcomings.

Some pilots interviewed by the NTSB questioned the skill levels of Conry and copilot Michael Guess, 30, of St. Paul. In addition, the NTSB found problems in Conry's past that included an undisclosed felony fraud conviction, logbook inconsistencies and falsification of a medical form.

Leonard said the negative reports from fellow pilots of Conry and Guess were "very unusual" because "most pilots will only say great things" or at least "hesitate to bash" colleagues who die in crashes.

The retired investigator said the last time a major NTSB report included a major focus on the background of a pilot was in the mid-1990s when a commuter plane crashed in North Carolina. In that case, Leonard said, investigators found pilot error as the probable cause. The pilot had been dismissed by previous employers on performance grounds, he said.

Conry and Guess died in the Wellstone crash along with all six passengers. The impact and fire destroyed the plane, which was not equipped with a flight data recorder or cockpit voice recorder. None was required.

In an interview, Leonard said the NTSB report is still missing important pieces, including information about the airplane's airworthiness and performance. The safety board has said "months of work" remain before fact-gathering is complete. After that, investigators will report all findings to board members, who will determine a probable cause.

St. Paul lawyer Michael Padden, who represents Guess' family, said he expects wrongful death litigation regardless.

Padden said he believes Conry was at the flight controls when the chartered King Air A100 nosed into marshy and wooded terrain 2 miles southeast of the Eveleth-Virginia Municipal Airport. The plane was squared up for a landing 9 miles from the runway with no apparent problems before it drifted off course and crashed without a distress call.

He said lawyers who represent the families of passengers on the plane undoubtedly will seek court approval to pursue unlimited punitive damages against the charter firm, Eden Prairie-based Aviation Charter Inc. Padden said the plaintiffs' lawyers likely will assert that the company didn't properly monitor or train its pilots.

Minneapolis attorneys Mike Ciresi and Roberta Walburn are representing the families of all passengers on the plane. They were not available Saturday for comment and have not yet commented on the case.

Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., Rep. Jim Oberstar, D-Minn., says the NTSB's exhaustive investigative reports should dispel talk that the plane was sabotaged.

When Wellstone died just days before last fall's election, some liberals insisted it had to be part of a conservative plot to seize control of the narrowly divided Senate.

"I think the fund of information here should put aside the idea that there was a deliberate takedown of this aircraft," said Oberstar, the ranking Democrat on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

"There were enough people who voiced those thoughts and expressed them to NTSB staff up at Eveleth at the time to warrant saying, 'Look this over first,' " he said.

But he said the NTSB's factual report showed a number of factors that could have contributed to the crash of the twin turboprop charter plane, including that it was piloted during icing conditions by a flight crew with a shaky record.

"The conspiratorialists will have to be put aside while we digest this very substantive information," he said.

Oberstar credited the safety board for its "meticulous, millimeter-by-millimeter reviews" that have pieced together the causes of numerous aviation accidents, even when most evidence has been destroyed.

In Oberstar's own congressional district, University of Minnesota-Duluth Prof. James Fetzer has written five columns on his own Web site that assert Wellstone's death was a political assassination.

On Saturday, Fetzer said nothing the NTSB has reported has changed his mind. He said the crash can't be explained by pilot error, weather or by mechanical reasons. He said he believes someone may have planted a bomb or gas canister on the airplane, causing it to explode. Another theory held by Fetzer is that an assassin used an electro-magnetic pulse weapon to disable the plane's electronic equipment, resulting in the crash.

"You can't lay this to rest unless you actually know what happened," said Fetzer, a philosophy professor who teaches critical thinking and logic.

His Web site, http://www.assassinationscience.com,includes information about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

-- Tony Kennedy is at tonyk@startribune.com.