Pilot claims no blame in July crash

Pilot claims no blame in July crash

By Andrew Dys
The Herald

http://www.heraldonline.com/local/st...-5022727c.html

The Ohio man who federal officials say was the pilot in a Rock Hill plane crash
claims he is being wrongly blamed for the July accident, which left two other
men dead.
Matthew Sullivan, 24, of Dublin, Ohio, told federal investigators and The Herald
he did not remember the flight or the crash and said he was not the pilot and
wasn't acting as a flight instructor that day. But he did remember the day
leading up to the flight, he said.

"I was strictly a passenger," Sullivan said in an phone interview from Ohio,
where he is recovering from serious injuries received in the crash.

Sullivan was one of three men on board the single-engine plane, which crashed
July 24 in a subdivision off Rawlinson Road, nearly one mile from the Rock
Hill/York County Airport. The others on board, Rock Hill native Eric Johnson and
Ohio dentist Bill Coulman, died.

Johnson was coming to Rock Hill for a Northwestern High School class reunion,
and Coulman owned the plane.

Federal regulators reported that fuel mismanagement by the pilot was likely
responsible for the crash. The mismanagement "resulted in fuel starvation and
subsequent loss of engine power," a National Transportation Safety Board report
states.

The NTSB identifies the pilot as Sullivan, who was sitting in the right front
seat of the plane and was the only one on board rated to fly under instrument
flight rules. The plane flew on instrument flight rules until changing to visual
flight rules four miles from the airport.

Instrument flight rules flying requires a higher licensing level and radio
contact between the plane and airport alerting the airport of the impending
landing, federal officials have said.

But Sullivan said he was invited by Coulman to be a passenger on the flight.
Sullivan said he had known Coulman for about a year but met Johnson for the
first time that morning at the Ohio State Airport in Columbus.

Sullivan said he did not know he was the only one on board with an instrument
flight rating and was not asked to be a flight instructor. He said he assumed
Johnson had an instrument rating and was in charge.

Coulman presented Johnson, who sat in the left front seat, as an Air Force
veteran and an experienced pilot, he said. "I was picturing a 'Top Gun.'"

The NTSB report describes Johnson and Coulman as "pilot rated passengers."
Another part of the NTSB report describes the two as "passenger" and "student
pilot." FAA records showed Johnson had been a licensed pilot since 1988.

Sullivan blames Coulman and Johnson.

"Dr. Coulman owned the plane, filed the flight plan and made the decision as to
who would fly the aircraft," Sullivan wrote to the NTSB. "Mr. Johnson actually
flew the plane knowing he did not have the certification or authority to do so.
It would be an injustice to blame me (as an invited guest) for their errors."

Sullivan said he is a flight instructor by training but was not acting as one
that day for either Johnson or Coulman.

"Matthew does not do for-hire flight instruction," his lawyer, Joe Coulter,
said.

Another lawyer for Sullivan, aviation law specialist Mark McDermott of
Washington, D.C., said the government is making Sullivan a "scapegoat" for the
crash. Both lawyers said Sullivan is being targeted by the federal government
because he is the sole survivor of the crash.

Federal officials declined to respond to the claims of Sullivan and his legal
team.

The Federal Aviation Administration, which has enforcement and pilot licensing
authority, confirmed it investigated Sullivan but took no action against him.
Because there was no action taken, there is nothing for Sullivan to appeal,
Southern region spokesperson Kathleen Bergen said.

NTSB spokesperson Lauren Peduzzi reaffirmed both agencies show that Sullivan was
flying the plane at the time of the accident and that the other two were
passengers. The NTSB, which handles crash investigations, has closed its case
and does not publicly respond to claims like Sullivan's, Peduzzi said.

Sullivan can appeal the NTSB ruling and is taking the right steps to do so if he
wants to be able to fly in the future, said Mike Hynes, who runs a Frederick,
Okla., aviation consulting business that does investigations for pilots and
their lawyers after crashes. Hynes is a former FAA examiner with more than
16,000 hours of flight time.

It's not surprising the FAA decided not to cite Sullivan because, with the other
men on board dead, it is hard to prove if he was acting as the flight
instructor, Hynes said.

However, Hynes is not surprised the NTSB ruled Sullivan was the flight
instructor.

"The normal rule of thumb is unless there is very clear evidence he was not the
flight instructor, he would be assumed to be the flight instructor," Hynes said.

The fuel selector switch is on the left part of the plane where Johnson was
sitting, said both Hynes and Erik Rigler of San Antonio, Texas, another aviation
expert who is a consultant in crashes and investigations.

The pilot in command designation does not mean that person was handling all the
controls, Hynes said, although the right hand seat does have access to some
flight controls.

The left front seat is generally called the pilot's seat, Hynes said.

However, Johnson, in the left front seat, couldn't be considered the pilot in
command if he was not instrument flight plan certified, Hynes said. Further,
only an instrument rated pilot is supposed to be able to file an instrument
flight plan, Hynes said.

The question of whether an on-board flight instructor is responsible comes up
often, Rigler said. A flight instructor himself, Rigler has had those concerns
personally when flying with pilots who don't have his high ratings.

A legal battle over liability is likely, both Hynes and Rigler said. The FAA
taking no enforcement against Sullivan makes a very strong case against
liability, Rigler said.

Most similar cases end up in civil courts and can take five years or more to
conclude, Hynes said.



--
Mortimer Schnerd, RN

VE