NTSB: Ted Stevens' plane crash remains a mystery

[The Straight Story]

NTSB: Ted Stevens' plane crash remains a mystery

WASHINGTON — The reason that the plane carrying former senator Ted Stevens and eight others on a fishing trip turned off course and hit a remote Alaska hillside last year remains a mystery. Investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board found tantalizing evidence of a history of medical problems with the single-engine plane's pilot and also noted that a critical safety device that might have prevented the crash was disabled.

But after nine months of poring over evidence and interviewing scores of witnesses who knew pilot Theron "Terry" Smith, 62 — who had suffered a stroke in 2006 and had seemed disoriented at times in the weeks before the accident — the safety board was left without the proof needed to say what happened.

"We know that something happened in that cockpit," NTSB Chairman Debbie Hersman said. "But at the end of the day, we did not have significant evidence to support any theory."

The NTSB blamed the crash on the "pilot's temporary unresponsiveness for reasons that could not be established."

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[mn9driver]

1. Subtle Incapacitation.

"Brain freeze" happens to pilots now and then; that's one reason why airliners have two people at the controls. We even train this scenario in the simulator from time to time: Something bad happens and the Captain is secretly briefed to do nothing, giving the First Officer the opportunity to have a "WTF?" moment and then react to salvage the situation. Not an option when there's only 1 pilot, as in this case.

Age probably has a lot to do with it as well. Older pilots have a lot more experience, but they also are sometimes slower to recognize and react to situations.