Airport official looks back on a tragedy on Owatonna

OWATONNA — Airport Manager Dave Beaver doesn’t like to talk about the crash.

He doesn’t say as much, but grows uncomfortable discussing the accident on July 31, 2008, which killed eight people after a chartered jet careened off the runway and into a cornfield near Owatonna Degner Regional Airport.

“At the airport we’re pretty saddened by the whole tragic event,” Beaver said on Wednesday.

It was not Beaver’s first time at a fatal crash scene. Beaver was at the airport when R.W. “Buzz” Kaplan’s replica World War I aircraft dove into the ground nose first in 2002, killing the well-known businessman and badly injuring his co-pilot Charles Langer.

Two years later, he helped steer the airport through another bad accident when a Cessna 206 piloted by former Owatonna resident Dr. Gordon Welke crashed into the roof of a home east of Owatonna. The accident killed Welke and his passengers James Christian and Brian Borwege of Owatonna, and Ben Borwege of Rochester. Each accident is absolutely unique Beaver said, though he found it difficult to remember the whirlwind of events on July 31 clearly.

“There were so many things that happened during that day,” he said.

That July morning a ferocious thunderstorm storm rolled over Steele County, strafing the nearby town of Medford with straight line winds up to 63 miles per hour.

However, the weather had cleared by the time the plane arrived around 9:20 a.m. — a Raytheon Hawker 800 business jet carrying six passengers and two pilots.

By then, the airport had returned to business as usual. Beaver recalled that he was sitting in his office with then-Intern Emily Tuma. They were going through routine items, perhaps maintenance.

The two saw the plane come in for a landing, darting past Beaver’s office window and out of sight. Beaver said they gave little thought to it and turned back to their work. About 30,000 take offs or landings occur at the airport each year and nothing seemed unusual about the plane’s arrival.

However, Beaver sensed something was amiss when he noticed activity at the end of the runway. Trucks from Rare Aircraft were speeding to a cornfield at the airport’s perimeter. Then he realized he had not seen the plane taxi back to the terminal.

He and Tuma went out to see what was going on. At first it wasn’t obvious where the plane was, but soon it was frightfully clear: This was definitely an Alert III. A crash had occurred.

Beaver would not talk about what they saw in the cornfield, but the scene was traumatic for Tuma.

“What an experience for some young person at the very start of her career,” Beaver said.

Beaver sent her back to the terminal to hold down the fort. Tuma said she was so shaken that she drove Beaver’s red diesel truck into a ditch. In a matter of minutes local authorities had arrived: The Steele County Sheriff’s Office, Owatonna Police Department, Gold Cross Ambulance Service, the Owatonna Fire Department, and the Minnesota State Patrol.

They sealed the scene off and began searching through the rows for survivors and clues. The crash debris was spread out more than 3/8 of a mile.

Initially, their first task was to find out what kind of scene was in front of them.

All they knew was that the plane had crashed around 9:30 that morning, but as the day wore on, officials gathered the facts. The flight originated in Atlantic City, N.J., and was scheduled to arrive in Owatonna at about 9:42 a.m. The passengers were on their way to a business meeting at Viracon to discuss a major project in Atlantic City.

Eventually, authorities released the death toll. Seven were declared dead at the scene. The eighth died later at Owatonna Hospital.

That afternoon members of the Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board arrived at the scene to directed the investigation.

As the days went on dozens of emergency workers combed through rows of corn for evidence.

“Everything was done very carefully and deliberately,” Beaver said.

Beaver’s recollections of the aftermath are fragmented, but he did recall that life a the airport moved at a breakneck pace for seven days straight.

“It seemed that there was always something you should be doing, whether it as taking a phone call or directing someone to a restroom,” Beaver said.

When asked how it felt to be in the middle of it all Beaver said, “I don’t know how to describe that. Everything is just happening so quickly.”

The national media had descended on Owatonna. By the end of the first day, Tuma said Beaver’s cell had 100 missed calls — some from CNN, the New York Times and even media organizations in Japan.

NTSB stayed for a week. It took twice as long for life to slow down, Beaver said.

“It’s hard to return to normal after something like that,” Beaver said

Though the crash was a tragedy, Beaver said Owatonna could be proud of how local authorities handled a complex, multi-agency operation.

“It was a well organized response,” Beaver said.

Clare Kennedy can be reached at 444-2376.

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