NTSB Final Crash Report Released

We are learning much more about the crash that claimed the lives of Captain Anthony Riggan and his wife Nicole. Both were killed in a plane crash, December 22, 2010 at the Colorado Springs Airport. At the time of the crash, there was heavy freezing fog. Captain Riggan tried once to land. The second time, the small plane crashed. The plane didn’t have de-icing equipment. The operator’s handbook said do not fly in icing conditions.

Here is an excerpt of the probable cause of the crash from the National Transportation Safety Board’s report: “The pilot?s decision to initiate an approach into weather conditions where the ceiling and visibility were below the minimums for the approach and where reported icing existed, in an airplane not certified for flight in icing conditions, and his failure to maintain control of the airplane during the missed approach.”

National Transportation Safety Board Air Investigators Dan Baker also told me, “It’s impossible to know what the pilot was thinking and why he made the decision he made. That pilot was doing what he thought was right at the time.”

Captain Riggan’s plane was not low on fuel. A toxicology report also indicates he was fine to fly. The 2007 Air Force Academy graduate and his wife Nicole are buried in the Air Force Academy’s private cemetery.