Report gives last moments of plane crash

http://www.courant.com/news/local/st...nes-local-wire

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. -- Preliminary reports show two men from a New
Hampshire company killed two weeks ago in a plane crash in Virginia had
trouble seeing the ground as they tried to land in misty rain and fog.
Killed were Robert Baldwin, president and CEO of Qroe Companies of Derry;
and David Brown of West Hartford, Conn., the land preservation and
development company's regional director. The single-engine Beechcraft took
off June 14 from Nashua bound for the private Bundoran Airport next to
Bundoran Farm, a 2,300-acre preservation development the company is
overseeing near Charlottesville.

According to the report, Brown, the pilot, had been circling above the
airfield, but reported to air traffic controllers that he could not see the
ground as he descended.
"It's a little too cloudy at the moment," the report quoted Brown, talking
to an air traffic controller.
Soon afterward, the controller offered to guide Brown to a lower altitude
nearby.
Brown turned him down. "Actually the field is directly under me if I could
.... spiral down," he said.
The National Transportation Safety Board said the plane was running normally
and there was no evidence it hit anything before crashing around 11 a.m.
Brown, a certified commercial pilot, had made 25 to 30 landings at Bundoran
Airport, but had never landed during rain, the report said.
"It just sounds like he drove the airplane right into the ground and didn't
see it," said Royce Rankin, an air traffic controller and manager of Nashua
Municipal Airport, who read the report. "But we don't know. Nobody will ever
know."
The report also quotes a Bundoran site manager who said he assumed Brown
would land at Charlottesville-Albemarle Airport, about 15 miles away,
because of the clouds. The manager said he left a message for Brown offering
to pick them up or arrange for a car rental in Charlottesville, but wasn't
sure if the message was received.