Investigators recovering the wreckage used a helicopter to hoist plane parts to place onto flatbed trucks soon after the crash. Investigators at the National Surface Trans-portation Board and the Federal Aviation Administration will reconstruct the wreckage to determine a final cause.
SNOHOMISH — Stories of the lives of the four men who died in the Snohomish plane crash Friday, Nov. 18 are starting to emerge.
Just before Thanksgiving, the county medical examiner’s office named the four onboard. They were: Scott A. Brenneman, 52, of Roy, Washington; Nate Lachendro, 49, of Gig Harbor; Nathan Precup, 33, of Seattle; and David W. Newton, 67 of Wichita, Kansas.
All died of blunt force injuries.
Lachendro was a longtime Engineering Program Manager at Raisbeck Engineering, the company which leased the Cessna Grand Caravan to gather performance data about the stock plane model.
Precup was an aerospace engineer who worked in flight testing and certification. But for something a bit different, in 2019, he went to Antartica to deploy and operate the BICEP (Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization) Array microwave telescope.
Newton, of Kansas, was a consulting pilot-for-hire for flight test work with turboprops and turbojets, his LinkedIn profile lists. Prior to this, in his 30-year career he was a company flight test pilot with Cessna and Beechcraft.
Brenneman was one of Kenmore Air’s chief pilots when the company started in 2006, the company said in a statement mourning the loss. “Scott was highly respected for his piloting skills, training capability and the way he engaged with his passengers and colleagues,” Kenmore Air said.
National investigators believe the plane’s right wing separated in flight mid-air before it crashed into a field between Snohomish and Monroe. It was the sixth or seventh of many test flights with the plane during that week until the crash. Raisbeck said at the time of the crash they had not yet modified the aircraft to test parts.
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SNOHOMISH — Four people onboard a small plane died when it crashed hard in an unworked farm field between Snohomish and Monroe around 10:20 a.m. Friday, Nov. 18 and went into flames. The plane’s right wing separated in flight mid-air, a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) confirmed Monday afternoon.
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