Investigation continues into Waco's fiery plane crash
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
By Mónica Ortiz Uribe
Tribune-Herald staff writer
Jerry Roberts was on the phone with his wife and daughter as the small plane he was flying in approached the Waco Regional Airport.
“I’ll call you when we’ve landed,” he told his family before hanging up, said cousin Bruce Harveston.
That call never came.
Three hours later, Roberts’ wife called Harveston at Natchez-Adams County Airport in Natchez, Miss., where her husband had taken off, and asked why he didn’t answer his cell phone.
Harveston, an airport employee, didn’t know at the time that Roberts’ plane had crashed and burned in a field about a mile from Waco Regional Airport.
The twin-engine Cessna 310 carrying Roberts and two other men went down at about 7 p.m. Sunday. All three were killed.
The National Transportation Safety Board, the agency investigating the crash, has not identified the victims. But Natchez-Adams County Airport manager Clint Pomeroy recognized the plane’s registration number and identified the three.
The men were big names in the two small towns where they lived and worked.
Their hometowns of Natchez, Miss., and Vidalia, La., are nestled against each other with only the Mississippi River in between.
Justin Cardneaux, the pilot, and Barr Brown, a businessman, were from Natchez. Roberts was a school board member and volunteer high school coach from Vidalia.
According to Pomeroy, the three men had been flying together for years. On Sunday, they took off at about 5 p.m. on a business trip to Waco, he said.
Why their plane went down is still a mystery to their friends and families.
A team of NTSB investigators gathered Monday at the crash site, about 100 feet from Pioneer Parkway.
Preliminary details about the accident aren’t expected for a few days, NTSB spokesman Bill Gamble said.
The plane was last reported flying at a ground speed of 59 knots at an altitude of 600 feet as it approached the Waco airport, according to FlightAware.com, a Web site that tracks flights.
Weather conditions were foggy at the time, limiting visibility to about 1 1/2 miles, but authorities couldn’t say Monday whether the weather was a factor in the crash.
Crash heard by many
Bonita Huff, who was smoking a cigarette on the back porch of a friend’s home about 300 yards from the crash site, said she heard an explosion louder than a thunderclap then looked to see the night sky turned orange.
“I saw a big orange ball of fire in the sky and I thought, ‘Oh my God,’ ” Huff said. “I was in shock.”
Huff drove to the accident site to see what had happened.
“When I learned it was an airplane that crashed, it made me sick to my stomach because you know anyone in there didn’t survive,” she said.
Huff, who has been through several hardships recently including a fire that destroyed her house last week, added, “When you think you have it the roughest, something will happen that will show you others have it a lot worse.”
Other area residents also heard the crash and the many sirens that followed.
“After this incident (moving from the area has) really crossed my mind,” said Peggy McCollum, who lives nearby. “The way the airplane crashed, it pointed towards our house.”
In Natchez and Vidalia, community members are mourning the loss of three of their own.
“We’re a small town in rural America faced with a real tragedy,” Concordia Parish school superintendent, Kerry Laster said.
She said Roberts, 37, won re-election to the school board in September.
“Mr. Roberts was a rising young star in this parish,” Laster said. “He had a can-do attitude and was a superintendent’s dream as a board member.”
Roberts leaves behind his wife, Dianna, and two teenage children.
Brown, 50, the former chief financial officer for LHC Group Inc., a home nursing company based in Lafayette, La., was a good friend of Roberts, Laster said.
He also owned a franchise restaurant in Lafayette called Doe’s Eat Place.
Jim Huson, the national franchise director of the steak restaurant chain, said Barr was outgoing and an all-around good man.
“He and I hit if off from the first time we met,” Huson said. “He had a great personality and was fun to be around.”
Brown’s family members declined to comment pending official notification of his death.
A manager at Brown’s restaurant, Leigh Martin, said his family was making funeral arrangements Monday.
Cardneaux, whose age was unavailable, had been flying planes since he was a student at Cathedral High School in Natchez, Pomeroy said.
As a certified flight instructor who ran his own business, Cardneaux had taught people how to fly for more than 10 years, Pomeroy said.
He was divorced with a teenage daughter.
“He was a regular guy, just part of the airport group,” Pomeroy said.
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