A North Dakota state senator took off from a remote Utah airport last month with his wife and two young sons in the plane without the runway lights on a night w
by JACK DURA & JOSH FUNK, Associated PressThis photo provided by Samantha Rose Photography LLC shows North Dakota Sen. Doug Larsen, second from left, with his wife, Amy, and their two sons, Christian and Everett, on Saturday, Sept. 29, 2023, at Papago Park in Phoenix, Ariz. All four of them died the following day, Sunday, Sept. 30, in a plane crash near Moab, Utah.
By the time the family got back to the airport shortly after 8 p.m., — more than an hour after sunset — it would have been exquisitely dark in an area known as prime stargazing territory because of the lack of lights. After the Larsens got back into the plane, the video showed the plane’s lights illuminate before it rolled down the runway and took off at 8:23 p.m.
A pilot can typically turn on runway lights easily with just a few clicks on the microphone at an uncontrolled airport like Moab’s, said Steven Wallace, who led the Federal Aviation Administration’s accident investigations for eight years. But the report said the runway lights remained dark.But Wallace thinks the investigation will likely focus on how much experience the 47-year-old Larsen had flying using instruments alone.
Larsen was posthumously promoted from lieutenant colonel to colonel, having met the criteria for promotion, Rivard said. Investigators also will carefully calculate just how much weight was on the plane with four people aboard and the additional fuel that Larsen just bought.
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