Crash of Tony’s Plane Stirs FAA Inquiry : Aircraft Carried 2 More Passengers Than Limit

Federal authorities Wednesday started investigating the crash of a plane carrying 11-year-old Tony Aliengena and seven members of his round-the-world flight crew, saying it appeared that the plane was carrying two more passengers than is legal.

A charter pilot familiar with the primitive airstrip in the tiny Indian village of Golovin, where the crash occurred Tuesday, said it appeared that the pilot also turned the plane the wrong way onto the runway and mistakenly tried to take off with, instead of against, a strong wind. The pilot was Gary Aliengena, Tony’s father.

The plane, accelerating to between 50 and 60 m.p.h., was blown off the runway by intense crosswinds and sent over a 50-foot embankment onto marshy tundra. One wing struck the ground, igniting the fuel inside the wing tank, but all eight people aboard escaped without serious injury.

Aliengena, a real estate investor from San Juan Capistrano, had flown the single-engine Cessna 210 Centurion to the coastal village 90 miles east of Nome for a brief fishing trip, a respite from the seven-week itinerary chosen to make Tony the youngest pilot to circumnavigate the globe.

Aliengena said he is unaware of any mistakes made during the takeoff and is uncertain about what caused the crash.

He said that it is a “question” whether too many people were aboard the plane and that he chose his takeoff direction because winds had shifted.

Paul Steucke, spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration in Anchorage, said Wednesday that crash investigators are en route to Golovin.

He said that all the FAA’s information on the crash so far has come from Aliengena and that the crashed plane carried eight passengers, including a reporter, but seats and seat belts for just six.

A spokesman for the FAA in Washington said regulations require a separate seat and seat belt for every passenger 2 years or older.

Those who did not have their own seats and seat belts aboard the plane were Tony’s sister, Alaina, 10, who sat on her mother’s lap, and Tony’s Soviet pen pal, Roman Tcheremenylch, 11, who sat between the pilot and co-pilot seats.

A violation of the regulation can result in as little as a warning or as much as a $1,000 fine and suspension or revocation of a pilot’s license, the FAA’s Steucke said.

Mark Heinz of Golovin, a charter pilot who has flown in and out of the village for seven years, said persistent, strong crosswinds make the village’s 2,800-foot gravel runway one of the most treacherous on the Seward Peninsula.

Aliengena reported a 20-knot wind during takeoff. Just before he began to taxi, the wind blew one of the airplane’s doors off its hinges; Aliengena replaced it, sealing it with tape.

Heinz said Aliengena appeared to take off in the wrong direction.

“I can’t imagine an experienced pilot doing that unless he is tired or in a hurry,” he said.

Other Alaskan commercial pilots said Aliengena reacted skillfully once the plane was blown from the runway. By applying full power and keeping the plane’s nose up, Aliengena prevented the plane from nosing into the marsh and flipping over--which could have brought about a fatal crash, they said.

In Nome on Wednesday, Aliengena announced that another Cessna Centurion had been loaned, enabling Tony to finish the flight, dubbed Friendship Flight ’89.

The flight was scheduled to resume today at 7 a.m., Pacific time, ending at John Wayne Airport in Orange County sometime Saturday, one day behind schedule.

Lance Allyn of Hanford in Kings County, one of the chase-plane pilots following Tony since the flight began in Orange County on June 5, said Aliengena was short of sleep when he tried to take off from Golovin.

On Sunday, the party flew to the village of 120 people, which is accessible only by air or sea, for fishing and relaxation. But one of the Soviet journalists traveling with the party, Aleksie Grinevich, was injured in an off-road vehicle accident. At 2:30 a.m. Tuesday morning, Aliengena flew the injured man from Golovin to a hospital in Anchorage.

Allyn and Gunter Hagen, a pilot who is monitoring the trip to verify it for an aviation record, were already in Anchorage for relaxation, Allyn said. Aliengena arrived and told them that he was going to sleep for two hours, then fly to Nome and dispatch a charter plane to pick up the party still waiting in the village.

Allyn said he feared that Aliengena would be dangerously tired for such a trip, called Aliengena’s wife, Susan, and received permission to send Hagen instead. But when Aliengena awoke later Tuesday morning, he was enraged to find that Hagen had left with the plane for Nome, Allyn said.

Aliengena flew to Nome on a commercial flight, took charge of the plane, flew to Golovin, loaded up the remainder of the party and prepared to fly the party back to Nome himself.

Aliengena made quick calculations on the weight of the plane’s load and concluded that the eight passengers were within the plane’s weight maximum.

The weather was windy, with low clouds forming an 800-foot ceiling. Steucke, the FAA spokesman in Anchorage, said there was apparently nothing in the weather to preclude a safe takeoff.

The gravel taxiway at the edge of the village heads toward the gravel runway. Fifty-foot embankments parallel the edges of the runway, below which lie marsh, then bodies of water on both sides.

At about 8:45 p.m. Tuesday, Aliengena began accelerating for takeoff while still on the taxiway, then turned onto the runway. The plane had not yet risen from the runway when it was blown to the side.

Aliengena applied full throttle and tried to land the craft on the marshy tundra beside the runway, but a landing wheel dug into the soft ground, throwing the plane down against its right wing, which caught fire.

All inside scrambled free. As the entire village population ran toward the wreckage, Aliengena kicked at the ground, cursing and blaming himself.

Joseph Lee, 29, a member of a documentary crew accompanying the party, suffered a gash in his jaw, which doctors said could require about 15 stitches. A reporter for The Times Orange County Edition suffered a bruised rib.

Tony, who had been in the co-pilot’s seat, received only a bump on the head. His sister, unhurt, told her mother: “Mommy, I don’t want to go up in the air again.”

A charter flight returned the party to Nome about 1 a.m. Wednesday. Aliengena set about trying to find another aircraft to continue the trip; one was volunteered by Ralph C. Mellon Jr. of Soldotna, Alaska, a boat manufacturer. His plane, another Cessna 210 Centurion, was due in Nome Wednesday afternoon ready to resume the Friendship Flight this morning.

Insurance adjusters have arrived in Golovin to examine the damaged plane, which Aliengena owns. He said it is heavily damaged but may be repairable.

Talking to Lance Allyn in Southern California, Aliengena said he expects to be criticized for the crash. “You know, it’s like being a cop: You get the blame no matter what happens,” he said.

Staff writers Steve Emmons and Jeffrey A. Perlman contributed to this story.

FATHER PROFILED--Associates call Tony’s father adventurous but skillful. Page 25.