Helicopter pulls bodies from plane crash site
By Connie Skipitares and Rodney Foo
MEDIANEWS STAFF
12/21/2006
GILROY — A helicopter on Wednesday hauled the wreckage of a small plane and its three lifeless occupants out of a raw sewage pond near Gilroy where they crashed early this week, allowing investigators their first close look at the twin-engine aircraft for clues to the bizarre accident.
Investigators have gone over witness reports of the crash, said Kristi Dunks, an air safety investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board, but they don't know why the 1964 Beechcraft Travelair, which carried a flight instructor and two flight students, fell from the sky.
The retrieved pieces of the plane did not offer any immediate clues to the crash, she said. They will be taken to Sacramento for further examination.
The victims were removed Wednesday from the plane at the site, a South County Regional Wastewater Authority treatment plant. The bodies later were taken to the Santa Clara County coroner's office in San Jose.
The victims have not officially been identified, but the Reid-Hillview Airport-based flight school, Nice Air, that employed the instructor identified him as Shoki Haraguchi, 27, and the students as Yoshiyuki Kato, 27, and Yasushi Miyata, 38. Miyata and Kato were residents of Japan, according to reports. Haraguchi lived in the South Bay.
Japanese consular officials in San Francisco said they had no information on the three men's backgrounds. But the consulate is helping the men's families, Dunks said.
Their Beechcraft Travelair departed San Jose's Reid-Hillview Airport abound 1 p.m. Monday and was scheduled to return four hours later. The occupants made no distress calls, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
About 4 p.m. another pilot flying above the area reported to air traffic controllers a plane going down near Gilroy.
The Beechcraft was found in the enormous sewage pond that evening. Rescue efforts were stymied because of the sewage, which would have exposed divers to contagions.
Sewage workers had to drain the pond, which was brimming with sewage 15 feet deep, and then decontaminate the empty pond with a mix of chlorine and water before recovery of the bodies and plane could begin.
On Wednesday crews attached hooks and straps to pieces of the plane before the wreckage was lifted from the tank by a helicopter.
The bodies remained in the plane's cabin, allowing investigators to determine where the victims were seated. Citing transportation safety board policies, Dunks did not disclose who was piloting the plane, saying it would be reported once the investigation report is completed, which could take up to 12 months.
Several TV crews were at the scene, including some from Japanese-language stations. A member of a Japanese television news crew said he had been at the scene through the night Tuesday, sleeping in his TV van.
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