After NC co-pilot ‘exited’ plane, questions remain, sadness lingers where he was found

Since Friday, Emily Osborn hasn’t been able to go into her backyard, let alone look at the forest of trees that peer over her back fence.

Friday afternoon, she was working from home in Fuquay-Varina’s Sonoma Springs neighborhood when she heard the sound of a tree branch snapping. She thought little of the noise, as her house is backed by dense woods, and she carried on with her day.

It wasn’t until hours later that she learned the sound behind her house came from 23-year-old co-pilot and Raleigh resident Charles Hew Crooks. Crooks died after “exiting” a twin-engine cargo plane before his unnamed co-pilot made an emergency landing around 3 p.m. at Raleigh-Durham International Airport, about 24 miles north. He was taken to the hospital for minor injuries.

Now, a glance out the window is a daily reminder for Osborn of the tragedy.

“I can’t look at that tree,” Osborn told The News & Observer Monday. “I can’t go in my backyard.”

The circumstances surrounding Crooks’ death continue to confound the neighborhood’s residents and those in the aviation industry who have scrutinized flight information and photos for clues about what may have happened. The story has drawn national attention, and across social media and other platforms, people have expressed sympathy to the Crooks family as they await answers.

Update: “911 call from Raleigh plane incident says ‘co-pilot jumped out of the aircraft’”

Charles Crooks’ family declined Tuesday to be interviewed, but instead asked that people focus on “his love of life and flying.”

“And avoid speculation on his final moments, which are so much less important than the nearly 24 years of joy and wonder that he brought to everyone he met,” said Crawford Crooks, the pilot’s brother, in a Facebook message to The N&O.

Crawford Crooks provided a social media post his brother wrote earlier this year to illustrate his point. His brother loved his new job in North Carolina as a flight instructor, and he wrote that had “met a bunch of really amazing people who put up with my relentless airplane talk.”

“This has been a very eventful year, and while there have been challenges, I’m the happiest I’ve ever been in my life and I wouldn’t trade places with anyone in the world,” Charles Crooks wrote in the social media post.

Crooks’ parents, Hew and Kate Crooks, told NBC News Monday that “Charlie was born to fly from the time he was a little kid. ... It was always his passion.”

A report on the incident could take months, The N&O previously reported, after it’s investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration. The NTSB will eventually issue its finding after evaluating the aircraft and records.

But Kate Crooks told NBC that their family doesn’t need those answers for closure.

“We are totally devastated,” said his mother in the interview. “The only thing that matters is unfortunately that he’s gone. He was the best.”

Common themes

Common themes emerged from those in the aviation industry who have studied available information about the incident. They’re not involved in the investigation but offered their observations.

Juan Browne, a career pilot who runs a YouTube account under the username blancolirio, said that incidents like the one that happened Friday are rare. He believes what happened to Crooks was an accident.

In a widely viewed video posted Sunday on YouTube, Browne said it’s possible that Crooks was attempting to look at the right main wheel that had fallen off during the plane’s attempted landing in Raeford.

In a recording of air traffic control exchange, one of the plane’s co-pilots said: “We were attempting to land, made contact with the ground, had a hard landing and decided to go around and at that point we lost the wheel.” They requested an emergency landing at RDU.

Browne said if someone is standing on the rear ramp of the plane, it’s possible to view the wheel area from that vantage point. While the plane has side doors, Browne said in his video that he believes they need to be removed before the plane takes flight. That didn’t appear to be the case with the plane Crooks was flying.

“So, if you want to inspect that landing gear in-flight, your only chance to do that is to open up this rear door and take a peek,” Browne said in the video, which has more than 143,000 views and over 800 comments.

Browne, citing Federal Aviation Administration safety guidelines for skydiving operations, said in the video that he did not think there was a requirement for pilots of the type of plane involved in the incident to wear parachutes, but added that it’s “standard practice and good procedure” to wear a harness that is strapped to the aircraft.

Patrick Smith, an airline pilot and aviation blogger, said it’s not common for the back door of the plane to swing open on its own. But he said it remains plausible that Crooks went into the cabin to check on the plane and the back door inadvertently opened, pulling him out.

He said it’s more likely to happen in the cabin of a non-pressurized plane like the one Crooks was in, than in a pressurized, commercial plane.

“The machinery and locking mechanisms of the door aren’t as sophisticated as they would be on a commercial jet,” he said.

An incident similar to the one Smith described happened in the 1980s: The door of a commuter plane opened midflight, causing a pilot to fall out while he was checking the cabin. He clung to the side of the plane and survived with only a cut hand.

In 2009, a passenger on an aircraft owned by Rampart Aviation — the company for which Crooks worked — was killed near West Point, Virginia, after exiting the plane mid-flight, according to an incident report from the NTSB. According to the report, a student inadvertently pulled the instructor’s parachute while he was standing at the door opening, pulling him out of the plane. Search teams ultimately found the instructor’s body in a tree, suspended by a white parachute.

Smith said it’s extremely unlikely that Crooks jumped out of the plane to save himself. Broken landing gear would not be a life-threatening situation for the passengers on the plane, he said.

“In the hierarchy of things that can go wrong in an airplane, it’s very far down the list,” he said.

How the search came to Fuquay-Varina

In North Carolina, once officials were notified of a man exiting the plane, an exhaustive search led helicopters, police, fire and EMS to the southwestern part of Wake County. They worked to narrow down the search from a massive area stretching from Cary to the Wake-Harnett County line.

Emily Stone, who lives next door to Osborn, said she could not believe the search would lead to their quiet neighborhood, a relatively new subdivision near Sunset Lake and Hilltop Needmore roads. But as the search progressed, it became clear that authorities were narrowing in on the wooded area behind their homes.

“We started seeing helicopters lower and closer,” Stone said.

Across the street from Osborn, neighbor Greg Silvestri realized something was wrong when a massive police presence filled the neighborhood.

“The streets started swarming with cops and firetrucks and ambulances,” Silvestri told The N&O.

Stone, an ICU nurse, knew if Crooks was still alive, he would need immediate medical attention. She convinced her husband, Matt, to join her, and the two began to search the dense brush and foliage behind their home.

Around 7 p.m., authorities located Crooks’ beneath the broken tree in Osborn’s backyard.

Silvestri said everything happened so quickly. On Monday, he was still trying to wrap his head around the events from across the street.

Stone, Osborn and other residents still felt uneasy Monday as they reflected on the events that occurred in their backyard. But they noted that their pain and discomfort pales in comparison to what Crooks’ family is dealing with.

“My heart goes out to the family and people involved,” Osborn said.

Stone, like Osborn, can see from her home the tree where Crooks was found.

“You just never expect something like this to happen in your backyard,” Stone said. “I’m so sad for this young man and his family.”

Kristen Johnson contributed to this report.

This story was originally published August 1, 2022 at 7:44 PM with the headline "After NC co-pilot ‘exited’ plane, questions remain, sadness lingers where he was found."