whalen@erlang.DEC (Don't be so right that you may be misunderstood) (10/14/85)
Associated Press Mon 07-OCT-1985 02:40 Drug Parachutists
Second Dead Parachutist Helped Make Tennessee Cocaine Drop
Newspaper Says
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - The owner of a plane that crashed last
week, killing him and 16 others, helped airdrop hundreds of pounds
of cocaine with a man who parachuted to his death 18 days earlier,
a newspaper has reported.
Colombian drug runners seeking revenge for the bungled Sept. 11
delivery of $591 million in cocaine may have sabotaged David L.
Williams' plane, which crashed Sept. 29 in Georgia, The Knoxville
News-Sentinel reported Sunday, quoting an unidentified government
drug agent.
Neither the FBI nor the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration
would confirm the newspaper's report that Williams had parachuted
earlier with Andrew C. Thornton II in an attempt to smuggle up to
880 pounds of cocaine.
Thornton's body was found in a gravel driveway of a residential
Knoxville home with some of the cocaine in a duffel bag around his
waist. In his belongings was a key to an airplane that crashed the
same morning in North Carolina.
The Sept. 11 cocaine shipment was to be delivered to Colombians
living in Florida, said the agent, who spoke on condition he not be
named.
``Those Colombians are upset they didn't get their shipment,''
the agent said. ``They wanted Williams to pay for messing up.''
Williams, an Atlanta real estate developer, 15 other skydivers
and the pilot died in the Sept. 29 crash, which the FBI began
investigating after the National Transportation Safety Board
discovered sugar in a fuel filter of the single-engine Cessna.
``I'd like to know their source so I could assign some agents to
check it out,'' said Joe Hardy, an FBI agent in Atlanta
investigating the possible sabotage.
``The DEA's investigation into Thornton is continuing. We're
still pursuing leads,'' DEA spokesman Robert Feldkamp said from
Washington. ``However, none of those leads have linked him to the
airplane in Georgia.''
The investigation so far has turned up more than 200 pounds of
cocaine hanging from a parachute in the north Georgia woods and a
bundle of Thornton's clothes, pilot's maps and a photograph of
Thornton's plane in a north Georgia pond near the spot where
Williams' plane crashed at Jenkinsburg, Ga.
The News-Sentinel reported Williams had parachuted with Thornton
Sept. 11 and left the Knoxville area after hearing Thornton had
died when his main chute failed to open.
``The plan was to drop the cocaine in one spot, bail out in
another and send the plane into the ocean,'' the agent told the
newspaper.
``When they got on the ground and were safe, they were to
contact Thornton's girlfriend, who was waiting there for them,''
the agent said.
Authorities believe Thornton, a former narcotics officer in
Lexington, Ky., set his twin-engine Cesna on autopilot and directed
it toward its eventual crash site in a wooded area of North
Carolina.
Thornton and Williams both attended the University of Kentucky
and had parachuted together, but federal investigators have
declined to say how much further their association went.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Associated Press Fri 11-OCT-1985 09:27 Parachutists
Pilot Of Parachutists' Plane Lost Four Jobs In Past Two Years
ATLANTA (AP) - Federal officials and former employers of the
pilot who died in a plane crash along with 16 skydivers say Steve
Wilson had lost four jobs in the past two years for reasons
including incompetence and falsification of records.
Wilson, 35, who once worked for the Federal Aviation
Administration, and his passengers died when a Cessna Caravan
plunged nose-first into the ground Sept. 29. The veteran pilot of
multi-engine jets flew the single-engine, propeller-driven Caravan
for the first time a week before the crash.
The National Transportation Safety Board is checking pilot error
as a possible cause of the crash, said spokesman Ira Furman.
Investigators found high quantities of water and sugar in the
plane's fuel, but it is not clear if that caused the engine to fail.
The Atlanta Constitution also reported in today's editions that
investigtors are trying to find out why the plane crashed
nose-down. Dean Humphrey, a spokesman for Cessna Aircraft Co., said
Thursday that the plane was designed to glide if the engine failed.
Humphrey said the plane should glide if emergency procedures are
followed and the craft is not overloaded or the weight improperly
distributed.
Wilson was asked to resign from his job as a pilot for the FAA
in July 1983 for falsification of a travel voucher, said Jack
Barker, an agency spokesman. Barker said Wilson twice lost his
pilot's license for doing unauthorized aerobatics in FAA planes.
Wilson's father, the Rev. Herbert Wilson of Atlanta, said the
FAA did not prove any charges against his son and effectively
blacklisted him by pressuring employers to fire him. Barker and
officials of three airlines for which Wilson worked deny that.
Airways of New Mexico, an Alamogordo-based commuter airline,
fired Wilson last year after three months because Wilson ``was
unable to accurately compute the weight and balance of an
aircraft,'' Wayne Nelson, the airline's owner, said Thursday.
Sunworld International Airways, a commuter airline in Las Vegas,
Nev., also fired Wilson after three months in 1984, said Bob
Warren, a Sunworld vice president.
Flight Safety International, a Marietta flight training center,
let Wilson go after learning of the alleged stunt-flying incidents
during Wilson's tenure at the FAA, said Kenneth Hesse, manager of
Flight Safety.
Wilson was hired in September by David Williams, the owner of
the Cessna Caravan skydiving plane, who also was killed in the
crash.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
As usual, any opinions expressed above are not necessarily those
of my employer....
Richard Whalen
Distrbuted Systems Advanved Development
Digital Equipment Corporation
HLO2-3/N03
77 Reed Rd
Hudson, MA 01749
UUCP: ...decvax!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-erlang!whalen
...decvax!deccra!whalen
ARPA: whalen%erlang.dec@decwrl.arpaconor@Glacier.ARPA (Conor Rafferty) (10/18/85)
What I'd like to know is why, with a plane full of skydivers, nobody escaped when they realized there was engine trouble? conor rafferty == decwrl!glacier!conor == conor@su-glacier.arpa