Brandywine Airport crash kills 2 after Gear problem

PA-32 crashes near Brandywine Airport (N99 Pennsylvania) and kills 2.
The airplane was observed to have the gear up on final. Not too sure
what happened here. Did the plane go-around after a prop strike? There
seem to have been a lot of fatal aircraft accidents in southern Chester
County recently.....



---begin excerpt---
ccording to airport officials, pilot Daniel Webster, of Saint Davids,
was having difficulty lowering the landing gear on his Piper Saratoga
single-engine plane as he approached the airport.

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David Nelson, a member of the board of directors at the airport, said he
could see Webster making the approach to land but noticed the Saratoga=92=
s
landing gear was not down. Jay Zook, the airport=92s assistant manager,
dove for the radio to tell Webster his gear was not down and to go
around, Nelson said.

"But he was too low, the propeller hit the runway," Nelson said. "You
could see 50 hash marks on the runway from where the propeller hit."

John Taylor, Brandywine Airport manager, observed Webster=92s plane "make=

a left turn" over the airport, and "then he made another left turn and
started descending."

"He was above the trees in the vicinity of the reservoir. He either had
engine problems or propeller problems and he couldn=92t sustain" the
altitude, Taylor said.
---end excerpt-- The Mercury Aug 23 2005 ---

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