NTSB begins investigation of deadly crash

SULLIVAN, Mo. -- Investigators said Sunday that engine failure apparently was responsible for a crash that killed six people and badly injured two, all of whom were on a skydiving trip.

Ed Malinowski, an air safety investigator from the National Transportation Safety Board, said that a witness at the Sullivan airport saw the airplane's right engine burst into flames shortly after it took off Saturday afternoon.

But Malinowski said a preliminary report on the crash won't be ready until today and a final report won't be finished for at least six months.

The victims included Scott Cowan, who along with his brother, Jim, co-owned Quantum Leap Skydiving Inc., the Sullivan-based company whose plane took off about 2 p.m. Saturday and crashed moments later in the eastern Missouri town. Cowan was piloting the plane, Franklin County Medical Examiner Michael Copeland said Sunday.

Cowan, 42, was from Sullivan. The other victims were Robert Cook, 22, of Rolla; Melissa Berridge, 38, of St. Louis; Robert Walsh, 44, of Webster Groves; Victoria Delacroix, 22, of Dittmer; and David Paternoster, 35, of Claycomo.

Cowan, Cook, Berridge and Walsh died at the scene. Delacroix and Paternoster died later Saturday at St. John's Mercy Medical Center in St. Louis, where two other passengers were still hospitalized.

The hospital said Steve Parrella, 46, of St. Louis, was in critical condition. The other injured passenger was Kimberly Ellen Dear, 21, of Dittmer. The hospital said her family declined to release information on her condition.

Several witnesses told police it sounded like the plane, a DeHavilland DHC-6 Twin Otter, had engine trouble soon after taking off from the airport in Sullivan, a town of 6,500 about 70 miles southwest of St. Louis.

Franklin County Sheriff Gary Toelke said the plane apparently struck a utility pole, then landed nose-first into a tree less than 10 feet from a house. No one on the ground was hurt.

Lisa Whitaker, 41, said she was lounging in her father's pool when she heard the engines of a plane passing overhead. When the engines went silent, Whitaker looked skyward to see a light plane speeding straight toward her over the nearby trees.

"It was gliding. There was no noise going when it came down," she said. "I was thinking 'This is a heck of a way to die."'

The plane hit a tree, then crashed nosedown about 20 yards away from Whitaker -- about 10 feet from a neighboring home.

When Whitaker's father, Larry James, came running from inside his house, he saw smoke and dust and heard a woman crying for help from inside the plane. Jet fuel spewing around the fuselage, he said, made him worry that a few small fires burning near the plane could cause an explosion.

James and a neighbor grabbed garden hoses and tried to douse the flames.

"We backed off and were spraying whatever little area we could spray," he said

Emergency crews soon arrived and pulled eight passengers from the wreckage. James said only the young woman was conscious and able to speak.

Quantum Leap's Web site says Cowan and his brother Jim, both had been involved in skydiving since childhood. Their family owned Ripcord West Parachute Center in suburban St. Louis in the 1970s and 1980s.

The two had more than 13,000 jumps between them, and both were members of the U.S. Parachute Team that, according to the Web site, won four world championships and several national skydiving championships since 1990.

Several people affiliated with Quantum Leap declined interview requests but said the company had a strong record for safety.

Several skydiving enthusiasts offered condolences Sunday in the guestbook section of Quantum Leap's Web site.

"Words can't express my sorrow," wrote Cindi Norris. "You are like extended family to me. I wish I could be there to hug all of you. I hope you find peace in knowing they are all enjoying eternal blue skies."

In an 1994 interview in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, cited in an article in Sunday's edition, Scott Cowan said, "There's no truer sense of flying than sky diving. It's just the feeling of flying."