Laura Erickson's For the Birds

Friday, January 2, 2009

Canada Goose and plane collide



Here's sad news to start the year, from today's Duluth News-Tribune:

The National Transportation Safety Board says a bird strike caused the crash of a University of North Dakota airplane that killed two people last year, including a young Duluth man.

Twenty-year-old student Adam Ostapenko of Duluth and 22-year-old instructor Annette Klosterman of Seattle died when the twin-engine Piper Seminole crashed in a swampy area in central Minnesota on Oct. 23, 2007.

The two were on a routine training flight from St. Paul, Minn., to Grand Forks.

The NTSB's probable cause report, dated Sunday, says the airplane hit at least one Canada goose. The NTSB says the collision "caused the airplane to be uncontrollable."

NTSB says the night flight contributed to the crash because the pilots could not have seen the goose.

Twenty-year-old student Adam Ostapenko of Duluth and 22-year-old instructor Annette Klosterman of Seattle died when the twin-engine Piper Seminole crashed in a swampy area in central Minnesota on Oct. 23, 2007.

The two were on a routine training flight from St. Paul, Minn., to Grand Forks.

The NTSB's probable cause report, dated Sunday, says the airplane hit at least one Canada goose. The NTSB says the collision "caused the airplane to be uncontrollable."

NTSB says the night flight contributed to the crash because the pilots could not have seen the goose.