MORRISTOWN, Vt. (AP) - A glider that crashed in a heavily wooded section of Vermont’s Sterling Mountain in 2018, killing three passengers aboard, was overloaded and underequipped, according to federal investigators.
The plane that crashed in August 2018 showed no signs of mechanical failure in other parts of the aircraft, according to a report released this week by the National Transportation Safety Board.
Investigators note in the report that the glider weighed around 50 pounds over the planes allowable maximum, the Burlington Free Press reported Wednesday.
The plane apparently stalled and spun out of control during what was supposed to be a 30-minute sightseeing tour.
The report says that an increase in a glider’s weight measurably increases a tendency to stall.
The glider was being flown by Donald Post of Stowe, a long-time pilot for Stowe Soaring. Post, 70, was killed in the crash along with the passengers, Frank Moroz III, 58, and his wife Suzanne Moroz, of Hamden, Connecticut.
Inspectors had notified Post prior to the crash that shoulder harnesses for passengers are standard equipment for the 1973 Schweizer SGS 2-32 aircraft but he had not installed them, the report states. Instead, the straps had been replaced with simple lap belts.
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