NTSB report: Plane flying low, wings rocking before crash that killed 3 in Williams

WILLIAMS, AZ (3TV/CBS 5) -- Authorities from the National Transportation Safety Board have released more details into the moments leading up to a plane crash that left three dead in Williams last month.

Just before 12:30 p.m. on Oct. 17, a Piper PA-28 went down shortly after leaving H.A. Clark Memorial Field Airport in Williams. The pilot, 31-year-old Hyemoon Kim from South Korea, Christopher Evans, a 44-year-old flight instructor from La Mesa, California, and passenger 51-year-old Dakota L. Almazan from Las Vegas, were killed in the crash. The plane was registered to a flight school out of San Diego called First Flight Corp.

According to Flight Aware, Kim took off from the North Las Vegas Airport that morning and was flying normally before landing at H.A. Clark Memorial Field in Williams. According to a witness, the airplane took off from the airport in Williams shortly after 12 p.m. The plane continued flying above the runway for about a quarter mile before it took a slight left turn. The NTSB says the plane “appeared to slow, lose altitude, and stall.” Another witness reported the plane was flying low with its wings rocking, officials said.

Debris was found in an open field, and the plane was located 90 feet away from where it first crashed. The NTSB says the terrain where the crash happened was flat, rocky and “heavily populated” with sagebrush.

Arizona’s Family previously spoke with the owner of San Diego Flight Training International, where Kim and Evans had ties to. Owner Philip Thalheimer said the two men learned to fly at the school, and Evans became a flight instructor.

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