Umair
A 2023 plane crash that killed a state senator from North Dakota, his wife and two of their children was most likely caused when the senator — who was piloting the plane — became disoriented while taking off at night without runway lights, federal aviation investigators said on Thursday.
The senator, Doug Larsen, 47, a Republican, was flying the single-engine plane on Oct. 1, 2023, when it crashed just after taking off from the Canyonlands Regional Airport, over 200 miles southeast of Salt Lake City, the authorities said at the time.
In a report released on Thursday, investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board said that it appeared that Mr. Larsen had not used the pilot-controlled runway lights and had turned off the airplane’s landing light immediately after takeoff. Unable to see in the darkness, Mr. Larsen most likely lost his bearings, investigators said. Moments later, the small plane struck a hill and then crashed into another hill, they said, killing all four people on board.
The crash took place just before 8:30 p.m. near the desert recreation town of Moab, Utah, where Mr. Larsen had stopped to refuel the plane after visiting family members in Scottsdale, Ariz. The plane took off in “dark nighttime conditions” and was flown into an area with “little ambient light,” investigators said. At the time of the takeoff, the full moon had not yet risen completely above the horizon, they said.
A witness and video evidence confirmed that Mr. Larsen had used neither the pilot-controlled runway lights nor the airplane’s landing light, which is sometimes used at night during takeoff, according to the report. A local operator told investigators that its pilots did not usually use the runway used by Mr. Larsen because it is too dark.
Shortly after takeoff, the plane took what the witness described as a steep and descending 180-degree right turn, investigators said. The plane then struck a hill, continued for about 540 feet and struck a second hill, investigators said.
Before the crash, Mr. Larsen had been briefed on the weather conditions, but that briefing did not contain information about the moonrise and illumination, investigators said. The Federal Aviation Administration advises pilots using the landing light at night during takeoff to turn it off only once the climb is well established, according to the report.
“It is likely that the pilot neither had adequate visual references after takeoff nor monitored the airplane’s flight instruments appropriately to detect the airplane’s descent,” the federal investigators said in the report. There did not appear to be any mechanical issues with the plane, they added.
Mr. Larsen’s logbook showed that he had flown more than 44 hours at night, including a flight of more than three hours just days before the crash, investigators said. He had more than 1,700 hours of experience in military helicopters, but no record of fixed-wing flight experience with the South Dakota Army National Guard, of which he was a member.
According to Mr. Larsen’s autopsy, he died in an accident from “blunt force injuries.” Investigators said that though the autopsy had revealed mild coronary artery disease — which posed a slight hazard to flight safety — there was no forensic evidence to show that it had contributed to the crash.
