KOKOMO, Ind. — Always make sure you put the right gas in your gas tank, that may have been the mistake that cost a pilot his life in Kokomo.
A new report from the National Transportation Safety Board shows the pilot of a plane that crashed in Howard County last Saturday had put the wrong type of fuel into the small passenger plane he was flying.
According to the report, the pilot had flown a Piper Aerostar 602P plane from Tampa, Florida to Kokomo that morning. He was sent there by In Flight Review, Inc, to “to provide … recurrent training to a customer” based in Kokomo.
A Piper Aerostar 602P is a twin-prop engine passenger plane. It is not a jet engine-powered plane. The report said that while the pilot was on final approach, the airport employee who fueled the plane asked the pilot if he “he wanted jet fuel.” The pilot replied “yes”, according to the report.
“He said he asked the pilot if he wanted jet fuel because the airplane looked like a jet airplane,” the report from the NTSB said. “When the airplane arrived, the employee pulled the Jet A fuel truck out and parked it in front of the airplane while the pilot was still inside the airplane.”
The report said the employee asked the pilot again if he wanted jet fuel, to which the pilot replied “yes.” Once the plane was filled with 163 gallons of jet fuel, workers at the airport told the NTSB, they heard the plane start up normally.
The plane crashed shortly after taking off with Dr. David Greenwald, a prominent plastic surgeon in Tampa, as the only person onboard the plane.
(PHOTO: WISH-TV)
