NTSB report on NC pilot’s fatal fall has new details but leaves key question unanswered
Federal investigators were not able to determine why the co-pilot of a damaged plane either jumped or fell to his death over southern Wake County in late July 2022, according to the final crash report from the National Transportation Safety Board.
Charles Hew Crooks and the plane’s pilot, Michael Oppedal, were on their way to Raleigh-Durham International Airport to make an emergency landing when Crooks left the plane through an open ramp at the back of the plane. Oppedal told investigators he thought Crooks intentionally jumped from the plane, but NTSB investigators evidence suggests that he may have fallen out accidentally.
The series of events began at Raeford West Airport, where Crooks was copiloting a CASA 212 that had conducted two skydiving runs and was returning to pick up a third group. The pilot told investigators that the plane was coming in for a landing, with Crooks at the controls, when they encountered wind shear that resulted in the plane hitting the runway hard.
Crooks aborted the landing, but the plane lost its right main landing gear. Oppedal took over, and Crooks reported the mishap to air traffic controllers and asked to be diverted to a larger airport that could better handle an emergency landing.
Oppedal told investigators he continued to fly the plane while Crooks communicated with air traffic controllers as they prepared to land at RDU with the right landing gear missing.
About 20 minutes into the flight to RDU, after they talked through the approach to the airport, Crooks became “visibly upset” about the hard landing in Raeford, according to Oppedal. Crooks opened the side cockpit window and lowered the ramp in the back of the plane, “indicating that he felt like he was going to be sick and needed air,” according to the NTSB report.
Oppedal said Crooks then “looked at him and said he was sorry, got up from his seat, removed his headset, and ran out of the airplane via the aft ramp door.”
But investigators say no one in Crooks’ family or among his coworkers had shared any concerns about his state of mind or behavior before that day. And investigators say his hasty departure from the cockpit could have stemmed from his desire not to throw up there.
Either way, Crooks ran to the rear of the cabin with the ramp fully lowered.
“He likely had not previously been in the cabin in flight with the ramp down,” the NTSB report says. “It is possible in his haste he lost his footing when encountering the area of the ramp and inadvertently fell from the airplane.”
Investigators also note that toxicology tests turned up mitragynine in Crooks’ liver tissue and urine, suggesting he had recently consumed a product containing kratom, a plant that can cause opioid-like impairment. Kratom is a stimulant in low doses and a sedative in higher ones, and can cause some of the symptoms the pilot said Crooks was exhibiting.
“Although it is possible that effects of kratom may have contributed to nausea or to some dizziness or perceptual impairment that may have increased his risk of falling,” the NTSB report says, “there is insufficient evidence to determine whether effects of .... kratom use contributed to the accident.”
Autopsy concluded Crooks’ death was an accident
An accidental fall would be consistent with the findings of an autopsy by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in November 2022.
“Upon review, it was concluded that the decedent had gone aft, likely to vomit from the open ramp, and accidentally fallen from the aircraft,” the autopsy report said.
Crooks had an “overriding passion” for aviation from an early age, according to his obituary. He read flight books as a child and started taking flying lessons near his home in Connecticut. After becoming a professional pilot, he qualified as a commercial pilot and certified flight instructor. In May 2021, he got a job as a flight instructor at FlightGest Academy at RDU, then accepted his “dream job” as a first officer with Rampart Aviation in April 2022, according to his obituary.
The plane Crooks and the pilot flew was registered to Spore LTD, a company managed by Rampart.
In the days after his death, Crooks’ family asked that people focus on “his love of life and flying.”
“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,” his brother, Crawford Crooks, said in a Facebook message to The News & Observer shortly after Charles Crook’s death.
This story was originally published December 15, 2023 at 3:12 PM with the headline "NTSB report on NC pilot’s fatal fall has new details but leaves key question unanswered."
