On Saturday afternoon, an Island Airways plane crashed while heading to Beaver Island’s Welke Airport, taking the lives of two islanders: Kate Leese and Adam Kendall.
Also on board was a Gaylord man, Mike Perdue, who died in the crash.
With him was his 11-year-old daughter, who is the lone survivor of the crash. She is being treated for her injuries.
The pilot was identified as Wiliam Julian. Julian had started working with Island Airways this year.
Senior officials say they’re beginning the investigation, but right now, there isn’t much information.
“This airplane did not have what is typically referred to as black boxes but it did have a GPS onboard that we were able to download,” said John Brannen, Senior Air Safety Investigator of the National Air Safety Board. “We have not had a chance – we were able to download it, but we haven’t had the chance to look at the data and kind of interpret the data.”
They’re also taking a look at how much the plane could have weighed at the time of the crash.
“One of the things that we do look at and one of the things we’re doing today is, we took all the baggage from the airplane, we’re weighing all the baggage,” said Brannen. “Weight and balance is an important factor in aircraft so we’re looking at their load manifest to see if it matches up with what we actually weighed.”
According to Brannen, winds may have also been an issue and is something they are looking at.
‘The airplane was not under air traffic control,” said Brannen. “In other accidents, we would look at air traffic control. We’d look at the weather, things of that nature, things that could affect the flight and we’ll be examining all that in the coming months.”
Family members gathered around a steel sculpture near the South Marina Monday night, and a ceremony was held to remember those lost.
A fund has been set up to .
© 2023 - 910 Media Group
