A small plane that crashed in Suffolk, killing two North Carolina men, earlier this month, had not been cleared to fly by a mechanic who was working on an issue with the aircraft's engine, according to a preliminary report from the National Transporation Safety Board (NTSB) released Thursday.
The crash happened on Jan. 7 near the 3900 block of Carolina Road.
Christian Rask Fauchald, 54, andEric John Bergevin, 53, were killed.
The report shows on Jan. 1, the pilot contacted a mechanic at Northeast Regional Airport in Edenton, North Carolina, "to inform him that the rpm drop was excessive during a magneto check and that he had parked the airplane in front of the mechanic’s hangar for further evaluation."
The mechanic looked at the plane on Jan. 4 and removed and cleaned the sparks plugs in addition to checking for resistance.
"He found that two spark plugs had very high resistance and one spark plug fired a little weak," the report shows. "The mechanic replaced those three spark plugs and reinstalled the five other spark plugs in the engine."
The pilot then performed a ground run of the engine, the report shows.
"As soon as the pilot ran the engine, the mechanic knew 'right away' that the new spark plugs did not correct the problem as the engine was 'skipping'," the report said. "The pilot shut down the engine and the mechanic informed the pilot that the airplane was not to be flown until he could investigate further, and he would most likely be able to do so on Monday, January 9, 2023."
The plane had not been released from maintenance at the time of the crash "as the mechanic had not had an opportunity to further investigate the engine anomaly," according to the report.
The report shows the pilot received his private pilot certificate on Nov. 29, 2022.
Fauchald and Bergevin were on their way to lunch in Suffolk when the crash happened, according to the report. They were at 1,000 feet in the air when the plane nosedived and crashed.
