NTSB report sheds new light on crash near Chugiak

WASILLA — Employees at a Palmer surveying company mourned the deaths of two colleagues killed in a Chugiak plane crash last week, a company official said.

Kyle Braun, 27, and Sarah Glaves, 36, both employees of the Palmer-based aerial surveying firm TerraSond, died when the Cessna 172 plane they were flying in struck a 100-foot tall spruce tree near the Birchwood Airport April 20, according to the Alaska Dispatch News and investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board. The crash also took the lives of pilot George Kobelnyk, 64, and co-pilot Christian Bohrer, 20. The plane was registered to Anchorage-based air taxi service 70 North, according to the NTSB.

According to TerraSond counsel Scott Schillinger, the plane was on the scene of a planned aerial survey when it went down.

“It’s a tragedy all the way around,” he said. “For our employees that died, for the pilots that died.”

Schillinger said he knew Braun and Glaves primarily as co-workers at the tight-knit 50-employee firm which has subsidiary offices in Seattle, Houston, and Mexico. The families of both employees were planning private memorial services in the future, and the company had made counselors available to employees, Schillinger said.

Braun was a drafter and Glaves was a survey technician, Schillinger said.

“Sarah I know was really into music and art,” he said. “Kyle was really into photography and the oudoors.”

The company has never before suffered a work-place death, Schillinger said.

The NTSB issued a preliminary report on the crash Wednesday outlining the plane’s final maneuvers in broad strokes, but did not include a definitive cause. Preliminary reports are usually issued within a week of a fatal crash. Findings of fact can sometimes take several months to complete.

FAA radar data showed the plane took off from the Birchwood airport about 8:40 a.m., and began a series of turns which took it over the Knik Arm shoreline and back over the airport several times. TerraSond had been retained to survey a property adjacent and to the west of the airport, according to the preliminary report. The final radar data from the FAA showed the plane flying on a southeasterly direction at an altitude of 800 feet and a ground speed of 102 knots.

Weather conditions at the time of the crash were calm, with an 8,000-foot cloud ceiling and nine miles of visibility, according to the report. Officials were also awaiting the results of a full examination of the plane’s engine, according to the report.

For now the company is focused on recovery, Schillinger said.

“We’re really trying to focus on the employees and their families,” he said. “Right now, it’s just overwhelming.”

Contact reporter Brian O’Connor at 352-2270, brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com, or on Twitter @reporterbriano.