Fuel Problems Ruled Out in Newport Plane Crash

U.S. air safety investigators Monday ruled out contaminated or mislabeled fuel as the cause of Friday’s fatal crash of a twin-engine Piper Aerostar at the Newport Beach Tennis Club.

Mechanics at John Wayne Airport had speculated that the wrong fuel had been used in the plane or that the fuel was contaminated, causing the crash that killed Canadian pilot-owner Anthony Deis, his wife, Marilyn, and the couple’s three daughters. No one on the ground was hurt.

But federal investigators said they have found no evidence of a problem with the type or quality of the fuel pumped into planes at the airport last Friday.

Meanwhile in Canada, preparations were being made for a memorial service. Schoolmates of the two older daughters--Amanda, 10, and Jaclyn, 7--will say prayers and recite poems at the service today in the small town of Camrose, near Edmonton, Alberta, where the Deis family lived. Also killed was 5-year-old Kimberly Deis.

One poem was chosen from each of the nine grades at the school, according to the Edmonton Journal. “God picked five roses,” one of them says of the Deis family. “The roses he picked were the most beautiful in the garden.”

At John Wayne Airport, mechanics said the “popping” sound of the engines immediately after Deis’ take off and his plane’s inability to gain altitude suggested a problem with the fuel supply.

“We checked out the fuel at the airport and it was OK,” said Gary Mucho, a National Transportation Safety Board supervisor in Los Angeles. “It wasn’t contaminated, and it wasn’t mislabeled.”

Mucho was referring to tests of fuel supplies at the airport. It was not immediately known Monday if traces of unburned fuel have been found and tested from engine parts recovered from the wreckage of the PA-60, which exploded on impact, leaving only part of a propeller readily recognizable.

Pumping the wrong fuel accidentally is rare, officials said, because of federally mandated safeguards, including additives that color different types of fuel. The PA-60 requires 100-octane general aviation gasoline, but other fuels with lower octane ratings are also available at John Wayne Airport, officials said. Although fuel used in jets is colorless, they said it has a distinctively smelly, greasy, kerosene odor.

Focus Still on Repairs

Officials said they were still focusing on repairs that were made on the plane at John Wayne Airport when the Deis family arrived in Orange County on vacation last week. Anthony Deis had reported an oil leak that reportedly was repaired, according to investigators.

Mucho said examination of the wreckage at a warehouse in Carson probably would conclude today. However, officials cautioned that it could be several months before they make an official determination about what caused the crash.