The Maui News, 04-Sep-1997
and The Associated Press
WAILUKU -- A federal report on last year's Molokai plane crash that killed Maui County Council Member Tom Morrow and four others says the pilot of the private aircraft lost his bearings in the dark night of Nov. 1.
The National Transportation Safety Board report also says Robert McCarthy wasn't even supposed to be flying at night. His pilot's license required him to have his plane on the ground by 6 p.m.
The document released Tuesday says the flight instrument that gives the pilot direction may have failed McCarthy, or he may have mistakenly followed a radar control instruction directed at another aircraft.
In any case, McCarthy turned his Piper Seneca twin-engine plane in the wrong direction and crashed into the steep mountains above Halawa Valley.
McCarthy, 38, co-chairman of Maui County's Democratic Party, was piloting the small plane from Molokai back to Kahului Airport following a Democratic Party campaign rally four days before the general election.
McCarthy and Morrow, 59, died in the crash, which happened 18 minutes after the plane's 6:49 p.m. takeoff from Hoolehua, along with council candidate Alfred Deloso, 64, of Kahului, and Kihei residents Mitchell Katz, 39, and his wife, Suzanne, 38.
The NTSB said it had not yet determined the "probable cause" of the crash, but a report of the factual findings found that McCarthy lost his bearings.
McCarthy veered off the flight course and complained about low clouds and heavy rain before the plane crashed into the dense forest ridge at Cape Halawa, the report said.
McCarthy may have obeyed an instruction given to an American Airlines flight by radar controllers in Honolulu. According to the report, he repeated the instruction to turn west, indicating he thought the order was intended for him.
He headed west back toward Molokai, and at 7:05 p.m. McCarthy told radar control in Honolulu that he could not find Nakalele Point on Maui. Radar control responded that he was 3 miles from Halawa and heading west. You going to Honolulu? a puzzled radar controller asked. McCarthy did not respond.
The plane was found at the 1,600-foot elevation above Halawa Valley, the report said, and it was headed west when it crashed.
Examination of the engines and propellers from the airplane wreckage showed that the engines were operating normally at the time of the crash, but the report notes that a compass in McCarthy's airplane may have been malfunctioning.
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