Aftermath of the crash. Image by Central Florida News Channel 13

As the Cessna 310R (N501N) climbed away from Daytona Beach International Airport (DAB), pilot Bruce Kennedy could see the beautiful Florida coastline in the distance.  July mornings made for beautiful Florida flights, safe from the thunderstorms that wandered about in the afternoon.  Wherever he looked, he could see for miles.  In Florida, unrestricted views aren’t difficult; there are no mountains to block the view.  Sitting next to him on the right side of the aircraft was Airline Transport Pilot (ATP) Michael Klemm.  He was accompanying Kennedy as a safety pilot.  Kennedy was only a commercial rated pilot and only ATPs could fly the National Association of Stock Car Auto Racing’s (NASCAR) corporate aviation division’s planes.  Kennedy pointed the aircraft’s nose towards the southwest, planning to keep out of Orlando’s busy airspace on the aircraft’s way to Lakeland, Florida.  Unfortunately, the flight would not be making it to Orlando’s airspace.  As fate would have it, this twin-engine Cessna would not be seeing any more airports, but would end up in a field of debris only minutes after leaving Daytona.

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The ill-fated flight was not even supposed to happen.  Both pilots were on one of Kennedy’s personal flights.  NASCAR’s aviation division’s operating manual clearly said that the airplane could only be used for corporate reasons.  Personal flights were strictly forbidden.  Of course, the head of the aviation department wasn’t going to be standing up to Kennedy, asking him not to fly.  After all, Kennedy was married to Lesa France Kennedy, president of NASCAR’s International Speedway Corporation and a member of NASCAR’s founding family.  So when Dr. Kennedy, who also worked for NASCAR as a medical officer, wanted to go on personal flights, he got his wish.  As long as it didn’t interfere with the plane’s regular tasks of hauling parts and documents, there wasn’t really a problem.

The same operating manual required that the pilot flying any of NASCAR’s airplanes be ATP rated.  This barred Kennedy from flying the airplane, but a concession was made for him.  He would be allowed to fly the airplane if a safety pilot accompanied him.  The safety pilot would be ATP rated and, in this flight, Klemm was the man for the job.

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As the airplane climbed through 5,500 feet, both Kennedy and Klemm picked up a light smell as if rubber was burning.  Alarmed, they began to check for a possible cause.  Soon smoke was emanating slowly from behind the instrument panel.  Something was definitely wrong; if smoke was present, there was a fire somewhere inside the aircraft.  Klemm quickly ascertained the aircraft’s position, they had just left DAB and had recently flown close to Deland Municipal Airport, but the larger airport at Sanford was closer now.  Ten minutes after the plane departed Daytona, Klemm pushed the radio switch in his yoke and announced to air traffic controllers (ATC) that there was an emergency on board.  He told controllers they were picking up smoke in the cabin and that the airplane would be headed to Orlando-Sanford International Airport (SFB) for an emergency landing.  He asked for a direct route to the airport and ATC obliged, clearing him to descend to 2000 feet immediately and giving him the go-ahead to land at SFB.  The airport, only 8 nautical miles away, seemed much farther to the pilots on board.

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Just the day before, one of NASCAR’s pilots had picked up a faint smell of an electrical fire just a few seconds after the weather radar on the plane had started acting out.  One second it was working fine and, suddenly, the screen of the radar had gone blank.  He had pulled the circuit breaker of the radar and the smell had gone away, so he left the breaker pulled.  There was no sense in risking an accident.  As soon as he landed at DAB, he walked over to the maintenance department and reported the problem to the head mechanic there.

On the morning of the flight, the director of NASCAR’s maintenance division walked over to the parked aircraft just as Kennedy and Klemm prepared the plane for flight.  He told them about the problem with the radar and told them that as long as they left it inoperative, everything would be fine.  Kennedy and Klemm didn’t think much of the electrical problem.  It was a clear morning and they would be safe and sound in Lakeland hours before the first thunderstorms began to pop up.  The flight would continue as planned.

As Kennedy continued the preflight checklist, it came time to check the circuit breakers.  Towards one corner of the breaker panel by his leg, Kennedy saw a popped circuit breaker.  It probably came undone in the previous flight.  While Klemm was still checking the outside of the plane, Kennedy pushed the breaker in.  It stayed in and nothing indicated something was wrong.  The maintenance director had said nothing about a breaker problem.  While the breaker was labeled, it was hard to read with his left leg blocking the panel partially.

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In the Cessna, both pilots were very concerned.  They were still four miles away from the airport and smoke continued to fill the cockpit.  Suddenly, Kennedy remembered the breaker.  Could it be that it was related to whatever was happening under the instrument panel?  There was little time for questions, so Kennedy decided to pull it back out.  The problem was that he could not remember which breaker he pushed in.  He knew it was labeled, but reading through the smoke in the cockpit was almost impossible.  There was little to do.  Kennedy asked Klemm about opening the aircraft door; they needed to get some of the smoke out of the cabin.  Klemm agreed.  Once the door was open, Kennedy was able to spot the breaker and pulled it, but it did no good.  Smoke continued to pour out of the panel.  Klemm had already come to the conclusion that whatever fire was consuming the innards of the instrument panel, it would have to be stopped.  He turned to grab the fire extinguisher, but it wasn’t in its usual spot.  After a brief search, Klemm was in disbelief.  They had an in-flight fire and the fire extinguisher required on board the aircraft was nowhere to be found.  If he managed to land the plane in Sanford, someone from maintenance would have some explaining to do back in DAB.

With the door of the Cessna open and some of the smoke clearing out now, the pilots could see Sanford, but it was still too far away.  All they could think of doing was to shut down all non-essential electrical components.  So Klemm called ATC and told them he would be shutting down all radios and electrical components.  Still, smoke continued to come out from behind the instruments.  There was a building heat that could be felt when Kennedy reached over to shut down the radios.  It became evident to both of them that Sanford, just 2 miles away was beyond their reach.  They began to look around for a field that could help them out, but Sanford had developed quite a bit in the past two decades and land that had recently been filled with open spaces and cows was now filled with subdivision after subdivision.  Klemm wondered if they would be able to make a clearing between some houses he could see towards the right side of his nose.  He had been on the controls of the airplane since the emergency started and now headed towards the clearing, hoping for the best.

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The controller that had been monitoring the Cessna’s moves was getting worried, they had not heard from the airplane for a bit now.  Just as he was getting ready to hail the aircraft, a call came over the radio.  It was the pilots from the Cessna.  Not much could be made out from the call, but the controller did make out “shutoff all radios, electrical”.  The controller understood well enough that the pilots had shut down the radios, maybe the electrical fire on board had something to do with them.  He hoped that by shutting them down, the pilots would be OK.  He looked down on his radar screen and saw the airplane about 3 miles northwest of Sanford, still descending towards the airport.  It looked like they would make it.  He advised other controllers at Sanford that the inbound Cessna would not be in radio communications with them.

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Now less than a mile from the airport, Klemm could see that he would indeed make the clearing between the houses.  It was an extremely small space, but he was confident that he would make it, if only the smoke didn’t obscure too much of the view.  He could sense the heat of the fire by his feet and pulled them back away from the rudder pedals.  It was just too hot to keep the feet there.

As the airplane was passing 500 feet, Klemm turned the airplane to align it with the clearing.  Turning without rudder pedals wasn’t pretty, but it sure didn’t matter much in an emergency.  Klemm eased back the throttle as he didn’t want to come in too fast.  As he began to level the wings and completely cut out the throttle, the airplane suddenly hit a line of trees.  They had been difficult to see through the smoke.  The impact was fierce and it immediately pitched the plane down towards the ground.  Klemm pulled back, trying to regain control, but it was clear to both Kennedy and him that it was too late.  The airplane hit a palm tree and slammed into the ground right by the wall of a house.  It completely destroyed the wall and the room inside, continuing through the house and out towards a neighboring house.  The second house stopped the airplane’s movement.

Inside, both Kennedy and Klemm were already dead from the impact.  The plane still had most of the fuel needed to get to Lakeland.  A fire was already underway, consuming the airplane and the houses.  Screams could be heard in the air; the houses were not vacant.

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The investigation of the accident came to a close on January 28, 2009, when the National Transportation and Safety Board (NTSB) issued its final report on the crash.  In it, the NTSB indicated that the probable cause of the crash was an in-flight fire that resulted in a crash on a populated residential area.  The aftermath left the two pilots dead and three more people on the ground killed; four more with serious injuries.  Two homes were destroyed and another one damaged.  The airplane came to rest 0.7 miles from the airport it was so desperately trying to make.

The NTSB cited as factors that led to the accident, NASCAR’s lax oversight of its aviation department, as well as non-compliance by its personnel of the flight operations handbook.  The NTSB also points out that NASCAR had no established procedures as to what to do when aircraft components malfunctioned.  Heavily criticized by the NTSB was the fact that NASCAR operated its flight operations like a flying club and not as a professional aviation department should be run.  Bruce Kennedy, they said, was not supposed to be using NASCAR planes for personal flights.

The events presented in this velozia.com post are pure speculation derived from the NTSB accident report on the Cessna 310R crash in Sanford, Florida on July 10, 2007.  It is meant as a possible scenario and not as a factual description of the events that happened.  Please refer to the NTSB report for more information.

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