The pilot of the small plane that slammed into a Montgomery County powerline tower was flying below minimum normal altitudes at key waypoints into the Gaithersburg airport he was trying to reach, according to the NTSB.
released late Monday does not draw conclusions about the cause of the crash but sheds new light on the minutes leading up to it, detailing pilot Patrick Merkle’s interactions with air traffic control and outlining flight-tracking data.
Merkle pressed on. But as an air traffic controller directed him to a waypoint about 13 miles from the runway, Merkle made a wrong turn, according to the NTSB. Merkle reached that waypoint about 225 feet below the minimum altitude, and then dipped even lower below the minimum altitudes for two subsequent waypoints, according to the report.Jeff Guzzetti, a former NTSB and Federal Aviation Administration crash investigator, said that under the conditions, Merkle should have found somewhere else to land.
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