A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis, serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. © James Conner.

17 July 2015

Why did Leland Bowman fly his Beech Bonanza into a mountain?

Sixteen-year-old Autumn Veatch survived the 11 July crash into the North Cascades of the 1949 Beech Bonanza piloted by her step-grandfather, Leland Bowman. According to Veatch, Bowman and his wife, Sharon, also survived the crash, but were trapped in the burning wreckage. Veatch suffered burns trying to free them, but wasn’t strong enough to do so (an Olympic weightlifter might have lacked the necessary strength). Finally, her will to live in command, she saved herself, bushwhacking downhill until she reached the North Cascades Highway.

Yesterday, two bodies from what’s believed to be the crash were transported on stretchers to Rainy Pass, which you’ll find marked by a light yellow circle on this cropped aeronautical chart (PDF, 7 MB). (The full chart can be downloaded for free from the Aviation Toolbox. These 1:500,000 charts, known as sectionals, are useful for surface cross country travel and navigation as well as for aeronautical navigation, as their latitude and longitude grids work well with handheld GPS receivers.)

Attention now turns from Veatch’s remarkable survival to why her step-grandfather flew his aircraft into a mountainside. Here, the story may become darker: an older aircraft, a pilot who acquired his license in advancing middle age, and an attempt to cross high mountains in unfavorable weather. Just before the crash, Veatch says the aircraft was flying blind in a cloud:

Telling her story two days after she was released from Three Rivers hospital in Brewster, Veatch said there had been panic aboard the small aircraft when the three passengers realised they were about to crash.

“We completely lost sight of what was going on at all … We couldn’t see a single thing, it was all white, and GPS wasn’t really working.”

At first, Veatch said, she was scared but thought her grandparents would be able to handle the plane.

“Then they both started freaking out … yelling, ‘turn the GPS back on.

“And then Leland said that he was going to go up, try to fly up, because there were mountains – he was like, we’re going to crash into the side of a mountain; I can’t see anything that’s going on.

“So we started to go up and it was all white, and then it was all trees, and then it was all fire.” [Guardian]

Was Bowman instrument rated? Was there a mechanical failure? Did instruments fail? What did happen to the GPS? Why was he flying so low in an area where peaks are almost 10,000 feet high, and two, Glacier Peak and Mount Baker, are well over 10,000 feet high? Was he following the highway?

Those questions, and more, will be addressed in the National Transportation Saftey Board’s investigation of the crash, which is now underway and in the fact finding stage. Answers may not come for a year or more.

But within the general aviation community, questions certainly are being asked. Well maintained single-engine aircraft usually do not crash into mountainsides unless the pilot makes a mistake.