Newly released audio of a pilot's conversation with a control tower just before his plane crashed into I-285 last May, killing all four people aboard, reveals a calm pre-flight routine turning to concern shortly after take-off and then to urgency.
“[H]aving some trouble climbing here,” pilot Greg Byrd reported shortly after taking off in his single-engine aircraft from DeKalb-Peachtree Airport the morning of May 8. That news broke up the standard sharing of information and instructions between pilot and tower.
The audio was released Thursday by the Federal Aviation Administration in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution for communications between the airport tower and the pilot of the Piper Lance identified as N5802V.
No other voices can be heard from the plane during the conversation between the pilot and the control tower. The plane crashed onto I-285 east at Peachtree Industrial Boulevard.
Byrd, his sons Christopher and Phillip, and Christopher's fiancee, Jackie Kulzer, were killed in the crash. The Byrds, who were from Asheville, N.C., and Kulzer, a graduate of St. Pius X High School in metro Atlanta, were headed to Oxford, Miss., to attend the college graduation of Greg Byrd's youngest son, Robert.
No one else was injured in the accident, even though the plane crashed onto a busy highway just after the morning rush hour.
After the initial warning that his plane was having trouble climbing, the pilot said, “Uh … we’re going to be down here in (inaudible)…”
Then, in response, the question from the tower, “Say again?”
After a pause, the hastened reply: “We’re going to be down here in the intersection …”
There was no further communication from the plane, and word came shortly afterward that the plane was down.
The National Transportation Safety Board, in a preliminary report, said a witness had noted that the plane was moving "extremely slow" before it crashed. The board's report on the cause may take a year or more, a spokesman said.
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