Charles Daniels, father of Jason Daniels, died in a plane crash on Saturday November 20, 1999.

Your prayers for Jason and his family are very much appreciated.

Three newspaper articles from the The Times-Picayune are reproduced below.

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ARTICLE #1 - Sunday November 21, 1999

4 killed in crash of single-engine plane

Pilot fell short of Lakefront runway

By Rhonda Bell and Paul Purpura -

Four people were killed Saturday when the single-engine airplane they were in slammed nose-first into a parking lot and burst into flames in an industrial area south of New Orleans Lakefront Airport, witnesses said.

The plane was on approach to one of the airport's north-south runways when it crashed about 5:20 p.m., authorities said.

New Orleans police would say little as they waited for investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board to arrive from Baton Rouge. Police spokesman Sgt. Pat Peyton confirmed that four people died in the crash of the Piper Comanche, a four-seat aircraft that was en route from Gulfport to New Orleans. No one on the ground was injured in the crash.

The plane was registered to Charles Daniels of Gulf Breeze, Fla. Federal and local officials declined to identify the victims.

Flight instructor Frank Mammelli said he was flying ahead of the doomed plane with a student when he heard the other pilot radioing the control tower for clearance to land. He said the pilot did not sound panicked when asking for guidance from the control tower, but seemed unfamiliar with the small airport.

Mammelli said the control tower told the pilot to approach from the south. The landing would have required him to make a 90-degree turn, changing his direction to northbound to approach the Lakefront runway. Mammelli, who turned his attention to landing his own plane, said he believes the other plane overshot its turn to the north and was trying to recover when its lights suddenly turned vertical in the sky. He said visibility also may have been a problem.

"I think he overcompensated," Mammelli said. "He was trying to make a U-turn back toward the approach to the runway." The sharp turn could have choked the engine, he said.

Eva Montalbano was in the back yard of her home off Downman and Townsend roads when she saw the troubled aircraft flying dangerously low.

"You could hear it spitting and sputtering. It was way too low -- much lower than they usually fly over here," said Montalbano, one of more than a dozen residents who called 911 when they realized the plane had crashed.

Mammelli, his student pilot and another passenger also realized the plane was in danger.

"The controller asked him what his altitude was and he calmly said 300 feet," the student pilot said. "That's the last thing we heard him say. We saw the lights go vertical. We knew he was in trouble."

A passenger on Mammelli's Cessna 172 glanced out his window and realized the plane had disappeared.

"But I didn't know it crashed until the controller said, 'Where did that airplane go down behind you?'" said the student pilot, who declined to identify himself. "I just couldn't believe it."

Harold Baptiste, an employee of BellSouth Entertainment near the crash site on Harbor Circle, said he saw the airplane flying north-northwest, its wings wobbling to the left and then to the right before it looped to the left and disappeared behind warehouses.

"He couldn't get level and all," Baptiste said. "I couldn't hear the engine."

The airplane apparently hit the ground nose first, crashing behind warehouses in the 7400 block of Townsend Street. Power lines above where the plane crashed appeared to be intact, indicating the plane apparently came in at a steep angle.

It landed about 75 yards from the front door of state Rep. Sherman Copelin's corporate offices and campaign headquarters at 107 Harbor Circle.

Carl Harper and Michael Johnson, who work at the offices, said they were eating and watching a football game on television when they heard the crash. They rushed to the burning airplane with fire extinguishers and saw a man in the wreckage, apparently dead.

"I started calling out," Johnson said. "We didn't hear anything."

"We didn't know if it was going to blow up or what," Harper said. "When it (fire) started getting too high, we started moving back. We did try to get to him to see what we could do, but the flames were too hot for anybody to get close to it."

The fire gutted the fuselage and left wing, leaving the right wing, its landing gear down, and a piece of the tail section. The propeller and other debris were scattered.

After landing his plane, Mammelli raced over to where he saw the billowing smoke. It was clear there were no survivors in the charred remains, he said.

Rescue squads from the New Orleans Fire Department, New Orleans Police Department and the New Orleans Levee District responded.

James Bowling, of the Flight Standards Office of the Federal Aviation Administration, said the National Transpiration Safety Board would be on the scene today to take over the investigation.

Staff writer Bob Ussery contributed to this report.

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ARTICLE #2 - November 22, 1999

Investigators digging through plane wreckage

Fatal crash probe may take months

By Paul Purpura - Staff writer/The Times-Picayune

Federal investigators Sunday began digging through the burned wreckage of a single-engine airplane for clues to why the aircraft crashed as it approached New Orleans Lakefront Airport, killing all four people on board.

Months may pass before the National Transportation Safety Board completes its crash investigation, a federal official said. The privately owned Piper Comanche, which was traveling from Florida, went down Saturday about 5:20 p.m. between two warehouses in the 7400 block of Townsend Place, officials said.

"We've just really begun hitting the surface," said NTSB air safety investigator Doug Wigington Sunday afternoon.

"We haven't seen anything mechanical, but we haven't gotten far enough to make a determination" about possible mechanical malfunction, he said.

The Orleans Parish coroner's office, which removed the bodies Saturday, declined to release the identities of the victims until families were contacted. The names might be released today, coroner's investigator John Gagliano said.

The four-seat airplane, built in 1965, was registered to Charles Daniels of Gulf Breeze, Fla., in 1985.

Officials said Sunday that the owner of the airplane was piloting it Saturday when it crashed, but Gagliano would not confirm that Daniels was among the dead.

However, a Piper Comanche 260 with an identification number matching that of the airplane that crashed had left for New Orleans Saturday afternoon from Peter Prince Field in Santa Rosa County, Fla., said Davis Glass, owner of Santa Rosa Aviation, the airport's fixed-based operator.

The general aviation airport, where Daniels leases a hangar, is also known as Milton Airport and is about 23 miles northeast of Pensacola, he said.

Glass said four adults -- Daniels, a woman and another couple, who appeared to be in their late 40s -- boarded the plane about 4:10 p.m., after they waited for rain to end and monitored weather reports.

"They sat around in our (pilot's) lounge for about three hours waiting for the weather to clear up," said Glass, who was acquainted with Daniels since August. "They were watching it very closely. He was very careful."

At Daniels' request, Glass said he "topped off," or filled, one of the airplane's four fuel tanks with 15.1 gallons of aviation gas. "The airplane appeared to be in excellent condition," Glass said.

"He paid his bill, they walked out the door and we said have a nice trip," Glass said. He said he did not know why they were headed to New Orleans.

He disputed early reports given Saturday that the airplane stopped in Gulfport, Miss., while en route, saying the pilot would have been hard pressed to leave Peter Prince Field at 4:10 p.m. and arrive in New Orleans at 5:20 p.m.

In New Orleans, Wigington said, the airplane was making its first landing attempt to the north on Runway 36 right when it crashed. The pilot was using visual flight rules, meaning the weather allowed him to land by sight as opposed to using navigation instruments, he said. Visibility was about seven miles, and there were only a few clouds at about 3,500 feet, he said.

Witnesses said the airplane was flying north-northwest, slowly and very low before it crashed. Its nose pulled up and then it apparently looped over and fell to the ground nose-first into a parking lot, narrowly missing warehouses and electric power lines. It then burst into flames, witnesses said.

New Orleans firefighters arrived six minutes after the crash was reported, and found the airplane fully engulfed in flames, Fire Department spokeswoman Carlene Barthe' said. Firefighters sprayed water on the airplane until airport firefighters arrived and doused the flames with foam, she said.

The investigation process began Sunday about 8:30 a.m. when Wigington arrived from Arlington, Texas. He called in an investigator with the Federal Aviation Administration and representatives from aircraft engine maker Textron Lycoming and aircraft builder Piper Aircraft Inc.

Wigington said representatives from the manufacturing companies might help determine what went wrong. He said he must submit a crash report within six months. The investigation will include documenting the scene and interviewing witnesses and airport flight tower personnel, he said.

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ARTICLE #3 - November 23, 1999

4 killed in crash planned N.O. getaway

Friends headed to weekend outing

By Littice Bacon-Blood - Staff writer/The Times-Picayune

The four people aboard a single-engine plane that crashed and burst into flames near Lakefront Airport Saturday were from Pensacola and headed to New Orleans for a weekend getaway, friends said Monday.

Orleans Parish Coroner Frank Minyard confirmed that the pilot and owner of the Piper Comanche was Charles Daniels, 57, a lawyer. His passengers were Kathleen Russell, 45, a dental-office manager; Craig Mullen, 42, a chiropractor; and his wife, Wendy Mullen, 33.

"They died instantly upon impact," Minyard said. "There's no question of whether anyone was living. They died from the trauma of the crash."

In a routine procedure, Daniels' blood will be screened for alcohol and drug use, and the results should be available in two weeks, Minyard said.

Also Monday, federal officials moved the wreckage to an airport hangar. At the crash site in the 7400 block of Townsend Place, the only remnants of the accident were a charred section of the street and a faint, sooty smell.

The cause of the crash remains under investigation. National Transportation and Safety Board representatives have said it could be months before the review is complete.

Daniels' ex-wife, Gayle Daniels of Winter Park, Fla., said Daniels was a veteran pilot who often flew into New Orleans, as well as cross-country, and kept his plane in impeccable shape.

"He was not a hot-dogger," she said. "He never took chances. The way Chuck stayed on top of things with that plane, I just don't know that could have happened. I know that he continually updated it." Gayle Daniels said she and Daniels were married for 30 years before divorcing two years ago.

She said her former husband bought the four-seater plane about 18 years ago. "He just loved it," she said. "That was his baby."

Gayle Daniels said they used to fly into New Orleans frequently for dinner and overnight trips.

Saturday's journey was supposed to be a quick fly-in as well, friends said.

The Mullens, who were transplants from Pennsylvania, were planning to head up north for Thanksgiving, family friend Leslie Mokry said. "Everybody's shook up about it," Mokry said. "They were looking forward to that, but it's not to be."

According to the tentative flight schedule Daniels filed with a hangar service, he was due to arrive in New Orleans Saturday about noon and was to stay until Monday morning, said Addie Fanguy, division manager of the Million Air hangar service of New Orleans.

"They had two rooms reserved," Fanguy said. "They had absolutely planned on coming in the daytime."

Apparently, rain delayed their Florida departure, and they arrived in New Orleans at nightfall.

According to investigators, the airplane was attempting to land on Runway 36 when it crashed shortly before 5:30 p.m.

The pilot was using visual flight rules, meaning the weather allowed him to land by sight as opposed to using navigation instruments, investigators say. Visibility was about seven miles, and there were only a few clouds at about 3,500 feet.

Witnesses have said the plane was flying low over the area of warehouses, looped over, then nose-dived into a parking lot, narrowly missing a warehouse and electrical lines.

It burst into flames almost immediately, witnesses said.

"His plane was always up to snuff. He knew every nut, bolt and screw," Gayle Daniels said. "But, I would believe a mechanical error before pilot error."

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