LANSING, Mich. — A plane that crashed last week in Michigan, killing five people on-board, after taking off in Greenwood had "no history of unresolved airworthiness issues," according to an aviation accident preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board.
The single-engine Turbo-Prop plane, a Socata TBM 700, was manufactured in 2003 and most recently inspected on June 1, the report said.
Six people were on the plane when it crashed Oct. 3 outside Capital Region International Airport, near Lansing, Mich. The plane had departed from Indy South Greenwood Airport. Five of the six people, including 48-year-old pilot Joel Beavins, have died. One other passenger is hospitalized with serious injuries.
Neil Sego, 46, of Trafalgar, John Lowe, 51, of Franklin, and Timothy Clark, 67, of Greenwood, were all pronounced dead at the scene of the crash. Zechariah Bennett, 27, of Plainfield, died Saturday. Beavins succumbed to his injuries Sunday, while Aaron Blackford, 42, remains hospitalized.
The NTSB report said Beavins, who lived in Franklin, had flown more than 1,400 hours of total flight time. The hour-long flight on Oct. 3 was his only flight time in the previous 24 hours.
Clark was the pilot-rated passenger on the flight, the NTSB report said. He held a commercial pilot certificate with single-engine land and instrument airplane ratings, along with a flight instructor certificate for single-engine land and instrument.
According to the report, the plane took off from Indy South Greenwood airport at 8 a.m. It climbed to 19,000 feet before it began a cruise descent down to 3,000 feet.
The last communication between the plane and the Lansing tower controller was made at 8:54:39 a.m. At 8:58:13 a.m., the tower controller unsuccessfully tried to contact Bevins.
The plane crashed about a third-of-a-mile west-northwest of the runway, according to the report.
