Report: Alcohol a Factor in 2011 Plane Crash
Posted/updated on: January 29, 2012 at 4:28 am
ANGELINA COUNTY — A toxicology report indicates a Lufkin cardiovascular surgeon piloting a private plane that crashed in Southern Mississippi last year was under the influence of alcohol at the time of the accident. Taylor Pickett, 51, his wife 22-year-old Laura, and her 29-year-old sister, Jaqueline Ham, were killed when the plane went down in the early morning hours of April 10, 2011.
According to the Lufkin Daily News, the National Transportation Safety Board reported the trio left from a New Orleans airport around 3:20 a.m. after going to a bar. Pickett reportedly did not get a weather briefing or file an instrument flight rules flight plan before his 4:08 a.m. takeoff in a Cessna 310R to make the 110-mile flight.
Less than 20 minutes later, he radioed air traffic control to say he had the destination airport in McComb, Miss., in sight and wanted to stop flight following services. At that time the destination airport was actually 24 miles away, and with cloudy skies it is unlikely Pickett had the airport in sight, the report stated. The plane then overflew the destination airport. The plane reportedly clipped some trees as it crashed into a wooded area and landed in a creek before catching fire.
