Preliminary report cites icing as cause of plane crash in Smyth County

A Smyth County plane crash that killed two people on March 16 was caused by ice that accumulated on the aircraft’s body, according to a preliminary Federal Aviation Administration report received March 25.
Aditya Roy Sanwalka and Margaret O’Brien, both from Ontario, Canada, were killed instantly when the single-engine Mooney Ranger airplane Sanwalka was flying plunged into the Jefferson National Forest near Rural Retreat.
The pair was headed from Canada to Jacksonville, Fla., when Sanwalka contacted the flight-control center in Atlanta and asked to descend to a warmer altitude because of a problem with “icing.”
Because he was flying at the lowest altitude permitted in the area, the report stated, the controller instructed him to ascend to 8,000 feet where another pilot had reported clear skies.
Three minutes later, Sanwalka contacted the center again and said he was losing altitude. Then all communication was lost.
Stewart Parnell, an unofficial small-plane expert who has flown Mooney planes over Southwest Virginia for more than 30 years, explained that airframe icing “changes the shape of the wing, and that’s what makes the airplane fly and gives it lift. So, if it loses lift, it consequently takes more power to maintain your altitude and that plane only had 180 horsepower,” he said.
As a result, such a plane could not develop enough lift to keep it in the air, he said.
If the plane becomes unbalanced, for example, if one wing dips, the plane can begin to spin, he said. In such cases, even the most experienced pilots would have trouble regaining control.
Sanwalka had logged 327 hours of flight time since getting his license 12 years ago, according to the report. Parnell said the flight time was not a significant amount, but certainly adequate for a long-distance flight.
However, Sanwalka had logged only 10 hours of “instrument” flight time and did not have an “instrument rating,” which is required in addition to a pilot’s license to fly in the cloudy, moist conditions he was in at the time of the crash.
Parnell said a variety of factors likely contributed to the crash, and he could not speculate based on the report, that inexperience was among them in this case.
He said people often ask him what type of small plane is the safest.
“Ninety-nine percent of the safety is the guy sitting in the left seat,” he said.
Amy Hunter writes for the Bristol Herald Courier. Contact her at (276) 645-2531.