Crews were ready to handle crash

By Maureen O'Connell
Thursday, October 2, 2003

Concord Journal

While plane crashes aren't an everyday affair in Concord, both police and fire officials say they are pleased with how emergency crews handled Saturday's crash of a Cessna 182 in the Estabrook Woods.

"Being next to an airport, it's something we do plan for," said Acting Fire Chief Mark Cotreau. "As fire chief, I'm very happy with the response from our people and the mutual aid companies. I'm very proud of how they handled this."

Firefighters have air disaster training from the Massachusetts Fire Academy, and drills have been run at Hanscom Field for emergency personnel from surrounding towns. Saturday, Sudbury, Lincoln and Carlisle firefighters assisted at the recovery site.

"There are a couple of things that are standard that really helped," said Cotreau. "One is the mutual aid system. When you work with the same people over and over for smaller calls, then you get something out of the ordinary like this, it tends to go smoothly because you know how everyone else works."

Lincoln and Westford companies supplied all terrain vehicles, which made accessing the rocky terrain deep in the woods easier.

"The ATVs really made it a lot less painful to reach the scene and get both people and equipment to and from the scene," said Cotreau.

Police Lt. Barry Neal agreed. He said Sgt. Joe Connell and Officer Barryn Carlton were the first on scene, and had to access the area on foot.

"The ATVs were a big help...but in some areas you just had to walk. You had a go over rocks," he said.

It usually takes the Fire Department 5 to 8 minutes to respond from Station One to Monument Street, Cotreau said, when crews know their exact destination. He said he was very happy with how quickly his men were able to get to the crash site, considering the circumstances.

"They made access to the site in a reasonable and efficient fashion," said Cotreau. "The response to the location originally said Punkatasset Hill, and they had to more or less deduce where the crash site was. It was an 11:20 call and they were on the scene at 11:29. We had to find the exact location, which we did fast, considering the heavy cover that's there."

Members of the Fire Department were already in the Estabrook Woods responding to a medical call when the 911 call came in reporting the crash. The ambulance transported the subject from the previous medical call, and the crew from the engine immediately started the search for the plane.

Neal said the police have been participating in training over the past year to prepare them to manage critical incidents, such as this.

"We have a plan in place," said Neal.

Chief Len Wetherbee, however, said a small plane crash such as this one involves little more than the work that usually goes into a traffic accident for officers.

"The hard part is locating the crash site," said Wetherbee. "The rest of it is pretty much dictated by the site. It's like a traffic accident, but in an isolated location."

He continued, "When people think of a plane crash, they immediately think of mass casualties. Larger crashes require massive efforts, but a single-engine plane, they're pretty easy to deal with."

The hard part, Wetherbee said, is seeing victims of heavy trauma. He said both the police and fire departments will offer services to emergency workers who are having trouble with the situation they witnessed.

"It poses severe challenges for us," said Cotreau. "We're making services available to our people as well as other agencies."

Both departments will do an incident review, and examine what can be improved for future incidents.

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Two killed in Estabrook Woods plane crash

By Maureen O'Connell / Staff Writer
Thursday, October 2, 2003

An Oswego County, N.Y., physician and his wife were killed Saturday morning when their plane crashed into the side of Punkatasset Hill, near Bateman's Pond, on its way to Hanscom Field.

Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration were still investigating at the disaster scene earlier this week to determine what caused the accident that killed Dr. Ravindra F. Shah, 64, and his wife, Dr. Manjula Parikh-Shah, 65, of Minetto, N.Y. Officials said Saturday it appeared the couple was killed instantly as the plane crashed into the heavily-wooded area.

The plane was reportedly making an instrument-guided approach to Hanscom Field after taking off from Oswego County Airport in Volney, N.Y. The couple was heading to Boston to attend a wedding.

"At 11:20 a.m. the Hanscom tower reported a plane had crashed in the Estabrook Woods," said Lt. Barry Neal of the Concord Police Department. "Minutes later, we got a 911 call from a jogger who reported a plane had crashed."

That jogger, Lisa Wiesner of Carlisle, said she heard what sounded like a very low-flying plane as she was running.

"It sounded if it was circling, trying to gain some control," said Wiesner. "It was a very odd sound. It wasn't smooth, and it wasn't sputtering."

Wiesner said she didn't see the plane until after she heard it crash a few minutes ahead on the path she regularly runs.

"It was a final, very loud thump. Then just silence," she said.

As she continued to run, she could smell jet fuel and knew she was getting close to the site. When she came upon the wreckage, she said she could see one person thrown from the plane, and called out to see if there was any sign of life inside.

"I think it was him who had been thrown, and I could tell he was dead," Wiesner said. "I wish I could have found the woman, maybe it would have helped...but when I brought the police back to the site, they said there was no possibility that she could have survived."

The crash site is approximately two miles from Monument Street, and three miles from Hanscom Field. There are no residences for at least one mile.

Neal said rescue crews quickly conducted a thorough search of the town conservation area, and determined the couple to be the only ones aboard the Cessna 182, single engine four-seater.

A debris field of about 50 yards by 25 yards could be seen at the crash site Saturday. The biggest piece of the wreckage was the engine block. An upside down wheel strut protruded from what was left of the fuselage. Some trees in the area were snapped, but Neal said there was no evidence of fire.

Because of the remote location of the crash, Acting Fire Chief Mark Cotreau said accessing the site was difficult. The heavily-wooded area made accessing the crash site possible only by ATVs or on foot.

"This is going to be a very difficult recovery," said Cotreau on Saturday. "There's very little access to this area, and there's a very rough terrain."

Still, Cotreau said, rescuers were able to get to the crash site quickly.

Concord Fire Department crews received assistance from Bedford, Lincoln and Westford firefighters. Lincoln and Westford fire departments provided the ATVs.

At the time of the crash, Neal said early morning fog was starting to break and sun was shining. It is unknown if weather was a factor in the crash. Jim Peters, spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration New England Branch, said the pilot gave no indication of trouble as it approached Hanscom.

"All indications show when it was making its instrument approach, there were no problems," said Peters.

The National Transportation Safety Board spent the early part of the week investigating at the site. No determination has been made as to the cause of the crash.

Ravindra Shah was a retired New York Air National Guard brigadier general who practiced urology at Oswego Hospital. According to the Palladium Times of Oswego, Shah was an experienced and decorated pilot who had flown more than a dozen types of aircraft and was a former state air surgeon who had been responsible for medical recruiting and promoting air safety with the New York National Guard.

He had been a member of the Oswego Hospital medical staff for about 33 years. He also had a private practice in Fulton, N.Y. and taught at Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse, N.Y.

The Palladium Times said Shah volunteered in October 2001 as a Joint Task Force surgeon and chief of medical operation for recovery efforts at Ground Zero.

His wife was a retired anesthesiologist who had worked on staff at the A.L. Lee Memorial Hospital in Fulton, the Palladium Times reported.

Information from the Boston Herald was used in this report.

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