FISHERS, Ind. -- An airplane that crashed last month at an airport in Fishers had taken while a helicopter was trying to land, according to the latest federal report on the accident.
New details about the crash were released in the preliminary report by the National Transportation Safety Board this week.
In it, an unidentified flight instructor describes the moments before he and his student came up on the crash while trying to land at the Indianapolis Metropolitan Airport in Fishers.
The flight instructor said the pilot, later identified as Norman Levine, 78, announced over the radio that he was taking off from the same runway they were landing on just moments before the crash.
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“At this point, it was clear we would have to initiate a go around in order to avoid a collision,” the instructor told investigators. “Instead of proceeding upwind and risking a collision while he was taking off, I opted to do a right 360 off of the southwest side of the approach… to ensure we would remain clear of his departure path.”
He said the pilot never responded to any of his radio calls and when they rounded back to land he noticed “a fire in the grass off of the departure end of the runway.”
“At this point, I realized it was pretty clear that the fire was likely the departing plane,” the instructor told investigators. He then called for help.
According to the NTSB report, Levine had accrued 1,200 hours of reported flight time since his last medical exam in 2012.
The report also states that the plane impacted the ground about 225 feet southeast of the departure end of the runway and sections of the airplane were scattered along the runway.
The crash remains under investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board and a final report could take over a year to complete.
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