Mystery surrounds cause of Gearhart plane crash; three children unaccounted for in wreckage of burned house (video)

Published 5:00 pm Sunday, August 3, 2008

GEARHART – A single-engine plane crashed into a house in Gearhart this morning and exploded into flames. An adult and two children were taken to the hospital.

Three other children were unaccounted for, said Dennis McNally, Gearhart city administrator, who was acting as the on-scene public information officer.

The house was being used as a vacation rental; no details are available on how many people were on the plane. One neighbor speculated that two families may have been at the home.

Eyewitness Jay Speakman said it was a sad day for the community. “When we got here it was a giant ball of flame,” he said.

Speakman said he heard the plane take off from the Seaside Airport, level off, then the engine appeared to speed up and then there was silence, followed by an explosion, he said.

These photos of the fire scene were shot by 13-year-old Drew Black just seconds after the crash.

Photo by Drew BlackMcNally said the plane first hit a tree and then the house. The crash happened at 6:37 a.m. and there was an explosion about 20 seconds later.

Some eyewitnesses told The Daily Astorian that there were two explosions. Another said that people in the street after the explosion had burns “all across their bodies” and were impaled with glass.

Fire crews from Gearhart, Seaside, Warrenton and Lewis and Clark combined to battle flames that errupted from the home at 398 N. Marion Ave. 20 seconds after the plane crash at 6:37 a.m. Monday.

Photo by ALEX PAJUNASThe crash was audible from as far away as Sons of Norway baseball field. The plane is believed to have come in from the southwest across some rooftops, then hit some treetops and spun out of control.

A LifeFlight fixed-wing plane, rather than a helicopter, was headed to the Astoria Regional Airport in Warrenton, where victims would be shuttled for transport, said Bob Coster, civilian search and rescue controller at Coast Guard Group Astoria. A later bulletin from a Portland dispatch center said LifeFlight was responding to Warrenton with multiple aircraft.

Betty Smith, The Daily Astorian’s advertising director, who lives in Gearhart, said her whole house shook with the impact.

These photos of the fire scene were shot by 13-year-old Drew Black just seconds after the crash.

Photo by Drew Black”You could tell the plane was in trouble,” she said. “I heard it stutter, and then there was a thud as it exploded.”

Smith feared that her friend Judy Redekop’s house had been hit so she ran to find out. “They screamed and ran out of the house,” she said. In fact, Judith and Jacob Redekop were unscathed, although their bedroom was opposite the house that burned. Smith sheltered the shocked couple in her home.

Fire crews continue to hose off hot spots near the front entry and stone fire place of the home at 389 N. Marion Ave. that was hit by a single-engine airplane that exploded shortly after impact Monday morning in Gearhart.

Photo by ALEX PAJUNASThe historic house at 398 Marion that was damaged belonged to Greg and Nancy Marshall.

Jacob and Judith Redekop were just waking up when they heard what Jacob Redekop described as the sputter of an airplane flying very low.

“The next thing I heard was a crash, then I heard an explosion,” he said. “There’s a piece of the airplane about 20 feet from our bedroom where we were sleeping. … Our whole house shook when this happened.”

These photos of the fire scene were shot by 13-year-old Drew Black just seconds after the crash.

Photo by Drew BlackRedekop said they ran into the street and saw at least one house engulfed in flames. Their upstairs bedroom faces that house, a Craftsman-style bungalow used as a vacation rental.

“Flames were shooting up 50 feet in the air. There was no chance anybody inside could have survived,” he said.

He added they could hear a woman screaming about her children over the din. While the couple didn’t know much about the family, Redekop said he noticed them enjoying a backyard picnic within the past day or two. He was overwhelmed by sadness this morning.

“I feel so sad that if there were children in the house, if there was somebody in the house, they didn’t have a chance,” he said. “It was totally random. Here we were sleeping and then the next moment, the people next door, their lives are changed forever.”

The Redekops have owned their Gearhart home for 18 years, spending half the year there and the remainder in Arizona. This morning, they took refuge in the home of friend and neighbor Betty Smith, who said the crash “shook all of our houses like an earthquake.”

The Marshalls had arrived at about 10 a.m. from Portland, said Smith. They told her the house was rented out for the week to a Portland family in town for an upcoming weekend wedding. The family had arrived Sunday.

Bystanders also told Smith that an uncle, mother and father had left the house to pick up coffee and were hysterical upon returning.

Emergency crews from other fire departments including Seaside, Warrenton and Lewis and Clark responded to assist Gearhart Fire Department. Astoria and Cannon beach moved equipment and personnel to provide backup.

Fog at the scene hampered early efforts to find the location, which is on North Marion Avenue between Third and Fourth streets.

A crash expert from the Federal Aviation Administration and a representative from the Port of Portland security detail were en route to Gearhart this morning.

Eyewitnesses on the scene offered several accounts of the drama.

Phillip Mancill, who lives across from the Sons of Norway baseball field nearby, said he heard the crash’s boom and felt his house shake.

Ann Ryder, of Spokane, Wash., is renting an adjacent house on North Ocean Avenue with family and friends,

“I think I’m just kind of coming out of it now, realizing the scope of what just happened in little Gearhart,” she said.

Michael Allen, who lives one street over from the fire on North Ocean, said, “There was the initial impact, which practically knocked me out of bed.”

He described hearing the low-flying plane’s engine rev up from normal to fast before it smashed into the house. A few seconds later he heard an explosion.

Gearhart resident Dick Fettig said the plane struck a tree, knocking branches into his house and yard.

Clatsop County Commissioner Patricia Roberts complained that people’s calls weren’t making it through to 9-1-1. No more details were available about this issue.

Ryder and those with her from Washington said once firefighters arrived, the blaze was quickly extinguished. They guessed it was 10 minutes after the crash that fire engines arrived on scene.

Jan Mitchell, a Pacific Power spokeswoman, said this morning that the company was asked to turn off power to a “feeder,” so firefighters could work at the crash site safely. The company turned off the power at 7:16 a.m, disrupting power for 608 customers.

The company had restored power to 410 of those customers by 7:49 a.m.

The remaining 198 customers will remain without power until the fire department gives Pacific Power approval to re-energize the area where the fire occurred.

Bob Gravely, a spokesman for Qwest, said there were no phone outages as a result of the fire.

Reporter Joe Gamm contributed to this story.

By SANDRA SWAIN

The Daily Astorian

With the Gearhart Fire Department fully engaged dealing with the plane crash, other local fire departments moved their resources around as part of Clatsop County’s mutual aid plan.

Astoria Fire Marshal Mike Jackson said the plan is a way to deploy firefighters and equipment to keep all jurisdictions covered.

“If you called in all the resources (to respond to the plane crash), if someone in Gearhart had a heart attack there would be no one to respond,” Jackson said. There’s a large binder with specific instructions for calling out second and third alarms, Jackson said. In this case, as Warrenton and Seaside fire departments sent people and equipment to neighboring Gearhart, a fire truck from Astoria moved over to to help cover Warrenton and Cannon Beach sent a backup to Seaside.

Mike Stein, a Warrenton volunteer firefighter who was toned out to respond to the fire station this morning, said as part of a protocol for emergency situations, if an incident commander requests additional equipment, fire departments respond. Warrenton Fire Chief Ted Ames is Clatsop County Fire Chief, a position filled on a rotating basis by local fire chiefs.

At the crash scene, Gearhart, Warrenton, Seaside and Lewis and Clark Fire departments worked together.