S.D. Governor’s Plane Yields Crash Clues
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WASHINGTON — Federal investigators said Saturday they had discovered metal fatigue and fractures on the mountings that connect a missing propeller blade to a plane that crashed Monday, killing South Dakota’s governor.
The twin-engine Mitsubishi MU-2 aircraft, whose pilot had reported engine trouble, crashed into a 75-foot silo, killing Gov. George S. Mickelson and seven other people.
Alan Pollock, a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board, said an agency metallurgist working at the crash site nine miles south of the Dubuque, Iowa, airport found “evidence of a pre-existing crack and a fatigue zone.”
The aircraft parts have been sent to the safety agency’s laboratories here for further testing.
Pollock said the Iowa crash resembles a 1991 incident over Utica, N.Y., in which a propeller blade separated in flight and pierced the fuselage of a similar aircraft.
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