What: Ponderosa Aviation Inc. Rockwell Commander 690A en route from Mesa, Ariz to Safford, Arizona
Where: Apache Junction, Pinal County, AZ
When: Nov 23, 2011
Who: 6 fatalities
Why: On a thanksgiving flight that took off at 6:15, the pilot was flying to Safford and struck a rockface at the Superstition mountains. The children’s mother, Karen Perry, was not aboard. The fuselage is jammed between rocks.
The victims of the crash included Joseph Hardwick, 22, mechanic; pilot and aircraft owner Russell Hardy, 31; pilot Shawn Perry, 39; and Perry’s three children, Morgan, 9, Logan, 8, and Luke, 6.
The plane had just left Mesa’s Falcon Field when it crashed. It is a six hour hike from a campground to the wreckage. A ten member sheriff’s rescue team was flown in by chopper, and hiked down from a mountaintop.
The flight path that the pilot took is a controversial one. The FAA redesignated Phoenix airspace, raising the floor altitude for commercial traffic at almost the same height as the tallest peak in the Superstitions (5,057 feet). Planes such as this one flying east from Mesa’s Falcon Field must either go around the peak or request permission to enter commercial airspace to fly above it.
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