There Are Still Many Unanswered Questions About GOP IT Guru's Tragic Plane Crash

By Larisa Alexandrovna, Raw Story. Posted January 17, 2009.

"That info was not available," Gaisner said. “It was secured -- not given out -- locked down."

The North Canton Post of the State Highway Patrol received a call from the 911 call center at 6:04 PM EST.

According to the incident report prepared by the state highway patrol and examined by Raw Story on site, Sgt. Leo Shirkey was the first law enforcement officer on the scene at 6:22. Off duty Post Commander Lt. Eric Sheppard and Trooper McCarthy, a plain-clothed investigator from the Canton Post, arrived within an hour.

The incident report lists the Stark County Examiner Harry Campbell as arriving at 7:03 PM to collect the body.

Not mentioned in the report is the role of two members of the local Civil Air Patrol squadron. According to Lt. Sheppard and Captain Geisner, the Air Patrol was tasked to help locate and turn off the Emergency Locating Transmitter (ELT), which was still transmitting from the partially intact tail of the plane.

An FAA Aviation Safety Inspector arrived at the scene several hours later, and a clean up crew worked through the night to prepare the plane for transport and storage.

Connell on Re-Approach

According to a preliminary report authored by NTSB investigator Mitchell Gallo, Connell drifted left of course during a radio-vectored instrument approach to an Akron-Canton runway and air traffic controllers began to direct a re-approach. Before Connell could affect the re-approach, he declared an emergency and disappeared off radar.

The Akron-Canton Air Traffic Control declined to comment.

Gallo, however, told Raw Story that the declaration of emergency was not Connell's final words. He would not elaborate but said that Connell did not describe the nature of the emergency.

Neither the radar data nor tapes of the radio transmissions have been released by the authorities to the general public or the media.

The only known eyewitness to the crash spoke to the Ohio State Highway Patrol but wished to remain unnamed in press accounts. This witness told Raw Story in December that he heard a very loud small plane engine seconds before seeing the lights of the plane emerge from the clouds heading nearly straight down.

"When the lights disappeared and the engine stopped I anticipated a crash but a couple of seconds went by before I heard the engine again, enough time for me to think, 'he's pulled up,'" the witness said. Moments later he heard the crash and saw an orange glow some distance from where he'd last seen the lights of the rapidly descending plane.

On Dec. 20, the plane wreckage was moved by Belden Village Towing to a hangar owned by Summit Aviation at Akron-Fulton International, a non-commercial airport which houses a large Lockheed Martin facility. The State Highway Patrol said that hangar space at nearby Akron-Canton Regional Airport was not available.

Raw Story visited Summit Aviation Dec. 24 and located the wreckage, which was being held in a building without gated security or security camera surveillance. NTSB officials had examined the wreckage the day before. Last week, Summit Aviation said that Connell's insurance company had arranged for the transport of the plane to another longer term facility.

Allegations Relating to two Previous Flights

Since Connell’s tragic death, much confusion has resulted in speculation and erroneous reporting relating to two previously aborted flights.

On Dec. 21, for example, Channel 19, a local CBS affiliate in Cleveland, Ohio reported that an anonymous source had warned Connell not to fly and that two separate flights had been canceled

See more stories tagged with: gop, karl rove, rnc, michael connell, it guru

Larisa Alexandrovna is managing editor of investigative news for Raw Story and regularly reports on intelligence and national security stories. Contact: larisa@rawstory.com.

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