Fog may have made it difficult for the pilot of a plane that crashed near the Gainesville Regional Airport to see the landing lights. The Nov. 7 plane crash killed three Key West residents.
A preliminary report released Monday by the National Transportation Safety Board gave more information on the crash but still did not say what the cause was.
According to the report, Andrew Ricciuti, 43, left Key West International Airport at 12:37 a.m. in a 1983 Partenavia .68 plane carrying his good friend Gordon Taylor, 52, and his wife, Barbara Taylor, 51. Gordon Taylor had a possible organ transplant waiting in Gainesville.
Between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m., Ricciuti contacted an operator at the Gainesville airport and asked about weather conditions and visibility of landing lights, the report stated.
The employee said the visibility was low because of fog, and Ricciuti asked whether Leesburg or St. Augustine would have a closer alternate airport. The employee did not hear back from him.
At about 2:40 a.m., Air Traffic Control in Jacksonville cleared the plane for arrival because the Air Traffic Control Center in Gainesville was closed for the night.
Robert Gretz, senior air safety investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board, said it is not uncommon for Jacksonville to clear planes to land in Gainesville.
Aviation officials contacted police about two hours later, which Gretz said might have been because they were waiting to hear back from the pilot.
The wreckage was located at about 7 a.m. about 3,575 feet from the runway. The main wreckage was resting nose down, and the cabin and cockpit areas were destroyed by fire, the report stated.
The wreckage was transported to Orlando to continue the investigation, Gretz said, except for the left wing of the plane, which is still located in a 100-foot-tall tree.
