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Preliminary Report Outlines Details From Fatal Plane Crash

By Lauren Williams

07/25/2017

Photo credit: Atchison County Sheriff's Office

(KAIR)--'Aerobatic Stunts at a high altitude.'

That's what a preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board said witnesses reported just before the airplane crash that killed two people on July 16 in Atchison County.

Those witnesses were between the crash site, 5 miles south of the Amelia Earhart Airport at 3618 Ness Road, and K-59 Highway, according to the report.

The report says another witness who was further south of K-59 Highway observed, “The airplane fly over nearby power lines between 25 ft and 30 ft above the ground. The airplane pitched up to climb in a near vertical attitude and then the nose turned to the left and the airplane turned and pitched down in a nose low attitude. The airplane descended towards terrain and just prior to impacting the ground the tail of the airplane came up.”

Killed in the crash, was the 1944 Roth American p-51D Mustang's pilot 64-year-old Vlado Lenoch, of Bluff Ridge, Illinois along with his passenger, 34-year-old Bethany Root, of Atchison.

Root served as the General Manager at Atchison's Amelia Earhart Airport.

The plane, named “Baby Duck,” departed the Amelia Earhart Airport at 10:05 the morning of July 16th and crashed just short of a grove of trees at 10:20.

The initial crash report indicated clear weather conditions at the time of the crash. A full report into the fatal crash could take months.

“Baby Duck,” was the same plane Lenoch flew in the aerobatics show during the Amelia Earhart Festival the night before the crash.

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