Crash impacts aviation families

Two families well known in local aviation circles suffered losses Friday after a rare midair collision between a medical helicopter and a single-engine airplane killed two men in Weyers Cave.

Jason Allen Long, a 32-year-old flight instructor of Edinburg, and Jacob Houston Kiser, a 19-year-old Hampden-Sydney College freshman, of Grottoes, were piloting a Cessna 172L that clipped the AirCare 5 helicopter at about 2:30 p.m. Friday, authorities said.

Kiser, the son of a pilot, was on winter break, said Hampden-Sydney College spokesman Tommy Shomo.

“We’re still trying to pull ourselves together from this,” he said of the 1,000-student college community.

The airplane, which lost a wing in the collision, crashed in a farm field about a half-mile from Shenandoah Valley Regional Airport. Both men were killed on impact, authorities said.

The pilots of the helicopter, Paul Weve and Joseph Root, were able to bring it down safely, with flight nurse Carolyn Booke on board.

Family and friends said Long, a former James Madison University All-American track runner, grew up around airplanes.

His family has an airfield on a farm and a private airplane, said Bill Walton, a family friend and Long’s former track coach.

“Jason loved flying,” he said. “He was an outdoors person and he was not one who was ever going to get cornered into a regular nine-to-five job.”

A relative said Long was dedicated to training and perfecting his running times. Walton said Long was selected along with few others to travel to Sacramento, Calif. for the summer 2000 Olympic trials.

His presence on the JMU track team helped bring the school into the national spotlight, Walton said.

“He ran year-round for us, pretty much,” he said. “He was definitely a key link.”

Kiser graduated from Fort Defiance High School in 2009.

His father Richard Kiser has numerous flying certifications, including for commercial airliners, according to Federal Aviation Administration records, and operates Classic Aviation Services Inc., an inspection and maintenance company, out of the Weyers Cave airport.

Jacob Kiser was a recent addition to the Glenmore Hunt Club, a foxhunting club of which his mother, Cindy, is a member, according to the club website.

Adam Lees, a Hampden-Sydney College senior and a yearbook editor, said he knew Kiser from a German class.

“He wasn’t a kid that you could stick into an intro class and be preoccupied,” Lees said. “He was really quiet. He seemed very intense and very smart.”

Kiser’s college roommate, freshman Kiel Powell, of Front Royal, said when he heard about the crash he couldn’t believe it.

“He was probably one of the most laidback kids I’d ever met,” Powell said. “Probably one of the nicest kids at the college.”

Together with their group of friends, Powell and Kiser would play four-way chess after lunch.

“I was pretty bad at it, but Jacob was pretty good,” he said. “He was a pretty smart kid and knew what he liked.”

With them at the chess table was Marc Hight, associate professor of philosophy at the college.

In an e-mail, Hight said he thought highly of Jacob: “He had a great circle of friends at HSC and will certainly be missed by myself, his friends, and the entire HSC community.”

Lees remembered Kiser was the first student to order a 2011 yearbook.

“It’s a pretty good indication he was planning on staying,” he said.

Kiser’s family and Long’s parents could not be reached.

Investigation continues

Questions remained Saturday about the cause of the collision, who was piloting the Cessna and where it was headed.

Authorities said the investigation could take up to a year to complete.

Five agencies responded to the crash after the initial 911 call to police at about 2:30 p.m., said Virginia State Police First Sgt. Scott VanLear.

Authorities said they will use laser technology to create a three-dimensional rendering of the crash site.

“The investigation is continuing and therefore the cause of the collision is not readily available,” VanLear said.

Because the Weyers Cave-based Cessna was a duel-controlled plane, it would be difficult to determine who was controlling the aircraft at the time of the crash, authorities said.

Senior Air Safety Investigator Brian Rayner, of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), said he spent most of Saturday morning interviewing witnesses to the collision. Most stories were consistent, with slight variation based on vantage points, he said.

Rayner said two agents from the Federal Aviation Administration have joined him.

“We did find a pilot’s logbook on scene, but we haven’t opened it yet,” he said. “Some [pilots] are very, very detailed about all the maneuvers they’ve practiced – and some others simply write, ‘I went from point A to point B.’ ”

Investigators have yet to examine the Cessna’s wing, which detached from the plane in the air and landed on an icy pond about 100 yards from the plane’s final resting point.

Rayner said he hopes to finish his on-scene work today.

“We’re throwing a big net and dragging in as much information as we can,” he said.

Lost voices

The Shenandoah Valley Regional Airport and area around it is “uncontrolled airspace,” authorities said.

Pilots are trained to operate their aircrafts using uniform patterns and rules, said Graham Pitsenberger, a former FAA inspector and area pilot.

One rule of flying stands out: See and be seen, Pitsenberger said.

Pilots with radios communicate with other aircrafts by using a common frequency, he said. But using a radio is not required by the FAA.

“That’s exactly why planes cannot fly in the clouds,” Pitsenberger said. “You can announce to the other people that you’re inbound, but there’s no requirement.”

Rayner said it is unlikely anyone was listening to the frequency during the crash.

He described radio communication for aircrafts as a “multi-layered and complex” system under jurisdiction of the FAA.

Pitsenberger said midair collisions rarely end without both crafts crashing to the ground.

According to witnesses and authorities, the bottom of the helicopter made contact with the top of the plane as the helicopter approached the airport from a medical trip to the University of Virginia Medical Center.

“If it had been any other way the helicopter would have crashed,” Pitsenberger said. “Usually there’s no second chance.”

Authorities said the helicopter had damage to its landing skids, not its rotor blades or rudder.

Pitsenberger said pilots can often handle other types of malfunctions but described a midair collision as “one of the only things we can’t recover from.”

Pitsenberger said the age of the plane, a 1967 model Cessna, would not be a factor of the crash as all planes go through regular inspections.

The crash is the fifth in Weyers Cave since 1980, according to NTSB records.