Though the number of fatalities in Sunday’s corporate-jet crash remained in dispute, either way it was one of the state’s worst air tragedies.
Bangor International Airport officials claimed all six aboard the private plane perished, while FAA records indicated one of eight survived.
Amid the awkward numbers dispute between the two agencies, Bangor airport officials confounded the confusion by calling a “news conference” the morning after the accident to tell reporters they didn’t have any information to share.
What they didn’t disclose was that they were fighting with the FAA over how many people were on the plane.
When reporters asked Bangor airport director Jose Saavedra for numbers, he could – and should – simply have said, “We’re trying to figure that out. We think there were six people on the plane but the FAA seems to show eight.”
Then when Saavedra was asked, well, how many people died or survived, he should have said, “I’m not sure yet but we’ll let you know once we straighten it out.”
Instead what the public got was bureaucratic mumbo jumbo.
Saavedra is proud of his airport’s safety record so for obvious reasons he wants to keep the numbers down.
But there’s one undeniable truth – whether six, seven or eight died doesn’t change the Bombardier Challenger 600’s tragic rank in the history of Bangor – and Maine – plane crashes.
It lines up in the top three, or maybe tied for second, of commercial-aviation disasters in Maine, depending on the final numbers.
Here’s a rundown:
The worst civilian crash was May 29, 1979, when 17 people aboard a Downeast Airlines plane died when it crashed approaching the Owls Head airport on a foggy night.
On August 25, 1985, eight occupants died when a Beechcraft 99 struck some trees short of an Auburn runway and crashed.
A U.S. Army A-26 Invader bomber crashed July 11, 1944 into a trailer park in South Portland while trying to land in fog.
Two crew members died and 17 people on the ground were killed.A B-17 bomber crashed the same day into Deer Mountain near Rangeley in fog, killing all 10 crewmen.
On April 14, 1952, a Navy P-2 Neptune took off from the Brunswick Naval Air Station when it lost power, crashing into trees near the runway. Six crew members perished.
A Navy P-3 Orion from Brunswick bound for Ontario exploded on September 22, 1978 over the town of Poland, killing all eight crewmen.
