Keith Williams, a prominent aviation attorney, said a final result in the investigation into the plane crash at Goheen Airport in September could take 18 months.
Now that timeline isn’t out of the ordinary, but Williams explained the report process by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has changed since the 2020 COVID pandemic.
“It used to be there were three reports in an investigation from the NTSB, a preliminary, and then a factual, and then a probable cause report,” Williams said. “Well, since the pandemic, they have downsized. People were tired. They didn’t replace them. Now it’s only a preliminary report and then a final report, which combines the last two. The preliminary is normally about two weeks. It looks like this one is running over on that. There’s no deadline, but that’s normal.”
The Federal Aviation Administration’s preliminary report stated that the Cessna 172F Skyhawk piloted by Shaffer went down under unknown circumstances as the plane lost control and crashed into trees west of the runway vicinity.
On Oct. 3, Williams called for the NTSB to dive into the maintenance history of the Cessna 172F Skyhawk piloted by Kenneth Shaffer, 76, of Trout Lake. The Clark County Sheriff’s Office said Shaffer likely died on impact.
“Each aircraft has its own specific inspection protocols,” Williams said. “All of them have an annual inspection. There is life of parts, certain parts only have a certain life, so many hours they can fly, like a propeller.”
Williams said that maintenance abuse is far too common in general aviation, stating that the plane doesn’t get what it deserves.
“Something went wrong with the airplane,” he said. “Airplanes don’t just fall out of the sky. Something makes it fall out of the sky.”
With the pilot being 76-years old, Williams said he has zero concern regarding age.
In addition to his practice, Williams is the past chair of the American Association for Justice’s Aviation Litigation Section, and he is a member of the Aviation and Space Law Committee of the American Bar Association’s Tort Trial and Insurance Practice Section. Williams has been practicing law for over 32 years, and around 20 years ago, he entered the aviation field after working on a commercial plane crash case.
In most cases, a preliminary report by the NTSB would be out by now, Williams said.
“They may have a lot of things going on, so it’s not totally unheard of for it to take longer than that,” he added.
The flight path on globe.adsbexchange.com shows the Cessna originating on radar at 1,300 feet over Longview, likely taking off from the Southwest Washington Regional Airport in Kelso before heading over the Columbia River and then east to the north of Battle Ground. The plane made three loops over north Clark County between 1,500 feet and 2,000 feet from the ground. The last loop before heading toward Goheen Airport occurred near Northeast 299th Street and State Route 503.
A nearby resident, Jeff Waddell, said he saw an aircraft performing stalls around 1 p.m. from his farm near Northeast 299th Street and state Route 503.
When hearing about what Waddell saw, Williams said that would be of interest to the investigator. When examining the flight radar data himself, Williams sees the Cessna quickly descend from 2,000 feet to 1,700 feet.
“That may very well be what was going on,” Williams said.
Williams added that practicing stalls is what pilots do, though.
“You practice for the worst,” Williams said. “But, as far as landing this plane and why it didn’t get there. That’s still to be known.”
As cuts to the FAA have occurred under the Trump administration, the government shutdown has also affected aviation.
“I flew out of Nashville yesterday, and there were problems where they didn’t have enough staff in the tower, so I’ve seen that firsthand,” Williams said.
Williams is deeply concerned that plane crashes due to other factors, near misses, and miscalculations by air traffic control could increase.
“There are always near misses, but those eventually lead to crashes just like Washington, DC,” Williams said.
