WASHINGTON -- A Learjet that took off from Orlando, Fla., Monday, carrying golfer Payne Stewart and apparently five others, traveled a wayward path across the country for four hours with no one at the controls shadowed by Air Force jets that watched it finally crash in a South Dakota field. Everyone on board, including the two pilots, was killed.
Federal investigators said the pilots appeared to have lost consciousness or died, possibly from a lack of oxygen, shortly before they were supposed to turn west toward Dallas, their intended destination.The plane crashed after running out of fuel, ending the life of one of golf's most recognizable figures, known as much for his traditional knickers and tam-o'-shanter as for his achievements on the course. Stewart won his first major tournament, the Professional Golfers' Association championship, in 1989, and followed it up with a victory in the U.S. Open two years later. But he went into a slump, and his success tapered off over the next seven years. In this year's Open, in June at Pinehurst in North Carolina, he outdueled Phil Mickelson by sinking a 15-foot putt on the last hole. It was the longest putt to ever decide the Open on the final hole.
Stewart had been headed for a tournament in Texas.
The twin-engine, high-performance, $2.5 million jet, which can carry eight passengers, left Orlando at 9:19 a.m. The pilots' last contact with air traffic controllers was routine, at about 9:45, when the plane was northwest of Gainsville, Fla. But the pilots stopped responding to air traffic controllers soon after.
Controllers at the Federal Aviation Administration's Jacksonville center called the Air Force, which dispatched planes from Tyndall Air Force Base in northern Florida; from Eglin Air Force Base, in the Florida panhandle; and from bases in Tulsa, Okla., and Fargo, N.D. An Air Force F16 pilot reported that there was no movement in the cockpit and the plane appeared to be on autopilot.
Capt. Chris Hamilton, another Air Force pilot, reported that the windows of the Learjet were fogged, possibly a sign that the cabin had become so chilled with stratospheric air that the moisture in the cabin atmosphere had spread itself like dew or frost on the windows. That may have been from loss of cabin pressure or from smoke on board, experts said.
Hamilton said, "It's a very helpless feeling to pull up alongside another aircraft and realize the people inside that aircraft potentially are unconscious or in some other way incapacitated.
"And there's nothing I can do physically from my aircraft even though I'm 50 to 100 feet away, to help them at all."
A sudden loss of pressurization in the "very hostile" environment of high-altitude flight is extremely rare for civilian aircraft -- and very unforgiving, aviation experts say.
It could have been brought on by a blown door or window seal. Experts interviewed after the crash considered that the most likely scenario because the two pilots aboard Stewart's Lear 35 did not broadcast a mayday.
"If you are in the cabin of a Learjet, you are in a very small pressure vessel, quite different than a DC-10, 757 or a large passenger jet," said John Nance, a veteran airline captain and aviation analyst.
"Almost certainly something blew out. It could have been a window, a door seal or a duct seal. Whatever it was, it doesn't take much to empty the cabin (of oxygen) of a Lear because it's a very small," he added.
The human body has limited ability to function above 10,000 feet. As the altitude increases, the air thins, and two things happen: There is less oxygen in the air; and there is less pressure to force that oxygen through the lungs and into the blood stream.
Airplane designers compensate by pressurizing the cabin area. Normally, the atmosphere inside a plane never feels any higher than 8,000 feet, despite the actual height of the aircraft.
If a plane loses pressure, a warning light goes on in the cockpit and oxygen masks drop from the ceiling. People use them -- if they are able.
In aviation circles, there is a term known as "time of useful consciousness." It is the measure of the time the body can cope without oxygen, and it diminishes quickly with altitude.
At 20,000 feet, the time is 10 minutes. At 26,000 feet, it is two minutes. At 30,000 feet, it is 30 seconds. At 40,000 feet, it is 15 seconds.
FAA officials said Stewart's plane ultimately climbed as high as 51,000 feet during its wayward flight across the nation's heartland, most probably on autopilot.
The FAA routed air traffic around the Learjet and kept planes from flying under it.
The plane cruised 1,400 miles straight, across half a dozen states. Authorities say the plane was "porpoising," fluctuating between 22,000 and 51,000 feet.
Stewart's Australian-born wife, Tracey, tried to reach her husband on his cellular phone while she followed the drama on television, her brother said.
"She was trying to ring him on his mobile and couldn't raise him. It's just really bad for my sister to be watching it on CNN, knowing that it was her husband on board," Mike Ferguson told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
The FAA said two crew members and three passengers were on the jet, including Stewart's agents, Robert Fraley and Van Ardan, and two pilots, Michael Kling and Stephanie Bellegarrigue. But Jack Nicklaus said he believed that a golf course designer who works with him, Bruce Borland, was also aboard.
After the crash, investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board rushed to the scene but had little hope of retrieving useful information from the cockpit voice recorder, because it had a standard tape loop of only 30 minutes, and the incident took over four hours.
The wreckage is "fairly contained," NTSB Vice Chairman Robert Francis said Tuesday. "It looks the aircraft was pretty much vertical when it hit the ground. The ground is soft, and it went in fairly deep. It's going to be a challenge, with the wreckage and sorting out what's there.
"Payne was just coming into his own, and it is truly saddening that he has been lost in his prime," said Nicklaus. "He will be sorely missed by anyone who ever knew him or had the pleasure of watching him play."
"He was a great credit to golf and to our country," said former Masters and U.S. Open champion Billy Casper. "Golf lost a great man."