Written by Michael Flynn
The National Transportation Safety Board has released a preliminary report on the circumstances surrounding a July 20 plane crash in the Virgin River Gorge that took the lives of Daulton and Jaxon Whatcott, two teenage brothers from Clinton, Utah who were traveling to Mesquite, Nev. to attend a basketball tournament.
The report only covers the preliminary findings of the investigation and does not reveal what caused the accident, which investigators are still looking into.
The aircraft, a Cessna 172K single-engine plane, crashed at around 6:30 p.m., according to the report. The brothers, who had contacted family just before they departed from Beaver Municipal Airport at 5:15 p.m., did not mention that anything was out of the ordinary with the aircraft, nor did they report having any mechanical trouble to air traffic controllers at any time. However, a driver on Interstate-15 reported that the plane appeared to be in distress just before the crash.
“A motorist traveling southwest bound on Highway 15 reported that the airplane passed low overhead in the canyon, traveling in the same direction as the motorist,” the report stated. “The airplane made a left turn following the highway, and suddenly rolled inverted and impacted the canyon wall.” The plane crashed just 100 feet above the highway, just south of the interstate.
Windy conditions may have contributed to the accident. Winds gusts up to 23 knots were reported at the St. George Municipal Airport, just 20 miles from the crash site. The driver who witnessed the accident reported that there were strong crosswinds blowing through the gorge that day.
The NTSB reports that all major parts of the plane and flight control system were found at the crash site. The wreckage has been removed to a storage facility for further investigation into the cause of the crash.
