Investigators say pilot error to blame for fatal airplane crash

POINT LOOKOUT, Mo. (AP) -- The pilot of a plane that crashed last August at College of the Ozarks, killing five people, waited too long to abort a takeoff attempt after failing to reach adequate flying speed, federal investigators reported.

Reaffirming their findings after the Aug. 2 crash that nothing was mechanically wrong with the Piper PA-32, National Transportation Safety Board officials blame pilot error for the crash in their final report.

Witnesses said they saw the single-engine plane lift off at M. Graham Clark Airport, then touch back down and skid, causing its tires to smoke. The plane ran off the end of the runway and burst into flames after hitting trees at the bottom of an embankment next to U.S. 65.

Five members of a Mesquite, Texas, family were killed in the crash. They were Stephen Buchanan, 60, a retired Dallas Fire Department captain; his daughter, Lezli Graham, 37; her husband, Byron Graham, 37, an 11-year veteran with the Mesquite Police Department; and the Grahams' children, Kasey, 14, and Cade, 3.

The NTSB report says the pilot initially failed to reach adequate speed, then didn't abort the attempt until it was too late.

Both Buchanan and Byron Graham, co-owners of the plane, were certified pilots. Since the craft could be flown from either front seat, investigators could not determine who was at the controls when the plane went down.

The report says the runway was adequate for a plane of that size and weight, and there was nothing wrong with the engine that would have caused the crash.

A spokeswoman at College of the Ozarks said the crash was the first fatal accident at the airport in at least two decades. Six people were killed in 1999 when a college-owned plane that was on its way to the airport crashed into a hillside about four miles away.

That crash killed two professors, their wives, a pilot and a student pilot.