1st Safety Board report on Laconia plane crash describes eyewitness report

LACONIA — The National Transportation Safety Board released it's preliminary report on the June 18 plane crash that injured the president of a local insurance company.

The crash occurred at 8:45 a.m. and Tom Volpe was piloting the plane. He had just taken off from a private runway on his property on Hadley Road. He crashed in a field about 400 feet south west from where he took off.

Volpe was extricated by firefighters from the plane and taken by helicopter to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon for serious injuries. As of yesterday his condition had been upgraded to satisfactory, according to a media representative from the hospital.

The report said that a female witness to the crash said she heard the plane "on the takeoff roll and turned around to watch it depart." She said she watched the Piper PA-22-150 take off and begin climbing to the south when the engine started "'spitting and sputtering."

She said Volpe banked right and began heading toward her but said "the pilot saw her standing there so he banked to the left." She said Volpe "pulled up to avoid hitting a house, entered a right turn and descended into the field."

The witness told investigators she heard a "pop, pop" as it climbed over the house but told them Volpe was flying it all of the time but "' in trouble' from the time he took-off until the impact."

Volpe, said investigators, was flying to Hampton Airport in the Seacoast area and had not filed a flight plan. The report said the visual meteorological conditions prevailed for a personal flight under federal regulations. He was medically certified by the FAA in October of 2014 and reported a total of 905 flight hours. He holds a private pilot certificate for a single-engine land (not water) and instrument airplane.

The report said the both of the plane's wings and the firewall were damaged while the empennage (or tail assembly) and tail control section were not. There was no fire.

The plane was removed from the property on the day of the crash and secured by the NTSB.