No official ID available for pilot in Monday’s fatal crash

As of Friday morning, the identity of a pilot killed in Monday’s crash has not been released.

Sheriff Dan Coverley said that conditions of the crash have hindered investigators in confirming the identity of the deceased.

The 1946 Globe Swift GC-1B involved in a 9:47 a.m. mid-air collision was owned by Donald Bartholomew, according to the tail number broadcast shortly after the crash.

Bartholomew owns a hangar and small airstrip off Pine Nut 2 due east of Ruhenstroth, according to the Douglas County Assessor’s Office.

Respected aviation blogger Juan Browne of the Blancolirio Channel on You Tube said Bartholomew was the pilot on Thursday.

Browne said he spoke to the instructor pilot in the involved Civil Air Patrol Cessna that collided in mid-air just west of Minden-Tahoe Airport.

He said Bartholomew has been “building and rebuilding Swift aircraft for many, many years, mainly out of his facility there at the Pinenut Airport just to the southeast of Minden.”

According to Browne, the CAP Cessna was on a mandatory 12-month check-ride flight with an instructor pilot and another pilot in the main seat.

A flight playback shows the Civil Air Patrol plane circling the airport before turning south southeast where it collided with the Swift.

Browne said the pilot told him that it was just before the collision they heard a radio report from the Swift.

“That got their attention as that was about the same location that they were going to be at very shortly,” Brown said in the video.

The two men in the CAP plane searched the surrounding skies for the Swift and didn’t see any Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast data that might have indicated where the Swift was located, according to Brown.

“As they continued their turn downwind, they never saw the (other plane) until they impacted the Globe Swift," Browne said. “Once they impacted the Swift, the 206 began shaking violently and … one of the three prop blades is missing from the engine.”

Witnesses told dispatchers on Monday that they saw an explosion and that the other aircraft fell into a field between Highway 395 and the airport, where it was burning when rescuers arrived.

The instructor pilot was able to land the Cessna safely using a dead-stick approach, according to Browne.

A spokesman for the Civil Air Patrol told The Record-Courier the organization couldn’t comment on the collision.

The crash was the second one in less than a month after one man was killed and another severely injured on Aug. 20 crash during takeoff.

Redwood City, Calif., pilot Randal G. Abraham was identified as the deceased in the crash that injured Gardnerville resident Brant Wood.

A preliminary report by the National Transportation Safety Board said the Lockwood Air Cam Abraham was flying appeared to be having trouble remaining in level flight shortly after it took off.

The NTSB and the Federal Aviation Administration are investigating both crashes.