Daniel R. Wills, 48, member of the band Slab City, and friend die in small plane crash
Hoodoo
Experienced pilot, friend crash on way back from Albany
By DENISE A. RAYMO
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Daniel R. Wills, a pilot who died with Ronald E. Rouselle in a plane
crash Sunday.
NEWCOMB � Two Malone-area men were killed when the Piper Cherokee they
were flying crashed Sunday in rough terrain about eight miles south of
Lake Placid.
Pilot Daniel R. Wills, 48, of North Bangor, a certified-flight
instructor and member of the local band Slab City, and his passenger,
Ronald E. Rouselle, 66, of Bombay, died on impact, said friends and
fellow pilots who had spoken with State Police investigators and U.S.
Border Protection and Customs agents.
The men had gone missing Sunday night, but the plane's emergency-locator
transmitter never sent out a signal for authorities to trace.
That will be among the questions investigators with the Federal Aviation
Administration and National Transportation Safety Board will answer as
they conduct a mandatory post-crash probe.
TOUGH TERRAIN
An exhaustive search for the plane was conducted Monday and into the
early morning hours Tuesday, with the crash site on Santanoni Mountain
finally located by State Police about 8:35 a.m. Tuesday.
The men had left Saratoga at 4:25 p.m. Sunday and were last seen on
radar by Albany Airport officials at 4:54 p.m., flying at 4,200 feet,
heading toward terrain of 4,600 feet near the Tahawus mining area.
"The problem is, with that area, there is a valley on the right and the
mountains on the left," said Jeff Kearney, a pilot and family friend.
"It's not unusual for the airport to lose radio contact over the
mountains when they are flying at that altitude anyway."
He said the mountain elevations change from 5,344 feet to 4,641 feet in
that region near North Creek, North River, Wevertown and Bakers Mills.
No one was at the small Malone Dufort Airport on Sunday night to know
that Wills had not arrived. He was the person at the airport who
normally would have reported any delay in the expected arrival of a plane.
NEXT DAY
No one knew anything was wrong until Monday, when pilots and people in
training were arriving at the Malone airport for their scheduled
appointments with Wills, who had logged at least 15,000 hours in the air
during his 20 years of flying. Wills did not show up, and his car and
Rouselle's were in the airport parking lot.
"It's not like Dan to miss appointments," Kearney said. "Dan was not
answering his cell phone, and we couldn't find him. About 3 o'clock, my
wife (Jennifer) called the State Police."
Investigators went to Wills's home and checked on Rouselle's house, as
well, and when they couldn't find either man, investigators canvassed
airports in the region for information.
After learning what they could from the Albany Airport, State Police
sent up their helicopter about 8 p.m. Monday and were joined by a Border
Patrol plane.
Border Patrol was flying at 8,000 feet, and State Police were about
3,000 feet below them.
"The Border Patrol stayed in the air as long as they could until 2 a.m.
(Tuesday); then they had to come down," Kearney said. "They said they
were going back at dawn.
"By that time, a lot of the pilots were gathering here and were going to
go up at 8 a.m. to help in the search. The State Police asked them to
wait until about 8 so they wouldn't clutter the air.
"Just about as they were ready to go, we got the call at 8:30, saying
they found the wreckage. The Forest Rangers rappelled down, checked the
wreckage and said there were no survivors."
TESTING PILOTS
Wills, who was single and survived by his parents and a brother, was
certified by the FAA to qualify pilots-in-training for their licenses
and was in the Capital Region to give pilots their final oral test and
in-flight check test before they would be cleared to fly on their own.
Wills was supposed to be there on Saturday, but bad weather postponed
the trip to Sunday, Kearney said.
WENT FOR THE RIDE
Rouselle is a retired Alcoa employee who was not a pilot but was about
to begin lessons with Wills. He owned a Cessna 140 Tail Dragger and
apparently had gone along for the ride when Wills had to go to Albany.
Among his survivors are his wife, Peggy, of Westville; two daughters and
their husbands, Lynn and Bill Jock of Chazy and Elisa and Charles
LaFountain of Tennessee; and two grandchildren, Cassie and Derek Jock of
Chazy.
PRACTICED EMERGENCIES
Kearney said the Piper Cherokee Low Wing "was the best plane in Dan's
fleet" and that the engine was mechanically sound and almost new, which
is why no one can understand why the emergency beacon did not work.
What's even more incredible to him is that Wills routinely practiced
emergency-landing procedures to make sure trainees at the controls could
handle the situation.
Kearney's 19-year-old daughter, Katelynn, said she was tested that way
just last week.
"He was a very good instructor and always practiced emergencies with
everybody," she said. "We went up, and at 3,000 feet above the airport,
he shut the power off.
"If you're going to crash, Dan is the guy you want to crash with."
MUCH LOVED
Jennifer Kearney, Jeff's wife, was answering the dozens of telephone
calls at the pilot's lounge at the airport Tuesday morning, fielding
questions from airport users, plane owners and friends who wanted to
learn more about what happened.
Mrs. Kearney was also the one who, between bouts of crying, had to call
the people in Wills's appointment book to tell them why their date with
him would not be kept.
"Every Border Patrol guy I spoke with had either taken lessons from him
or flown with him," she said. "He was like a parent to everyone who took
lessons from him.
"If you asked 1,000 of his friends, that would still be a small number
of the people who loved him. Everybody loved him.
"He had fun with everything he did, and that included the band," she
said, where Wills did some of the singing and played the bass, piano and
more.
"He was entertaining even when he didn't have an instrument in his
hand," she said as she laughed and brushed away tears.
"He was just one of those people who will never die."
--
"Think with your dipstick, Jimmy."