Oil Pressure Not a Problem in Plane Crash

An air safety investigator said Tuesday that evidence indicates there was no oil pressure problem aboard the Piper Aerostar that crashed and burned on a tennis court in Newport Beach on March 31.

That finding appeared to rule out a problem in the oil system as a possible cause of the crash, which killed a Canadian family of five, said Jeff Rich, an investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board. The oil system had come to the attention of investigators because pilot Anthony Deis had asked mechanics at Martin Aviation to check his plane for a possible oil leak three days before the crash.

Rich also said that the propeller blades on the plane’s right engine appear to have been “feathered” before the crash, which killed Deis, his wife and their three daughters. Feathering tilts the angle of the blades so that they provide less drag during an engine failure.

The propellers on the left engine were not feathered, Rich said.

Rich cautioned that it is still too soon to conclude that the right engine caused the crash or that a foam rubber seal sucked into the right engine’s turbocharger is to blame. “We’re still researching the plane’s fuel lines and the investigation is continuing,” he said.

NTSB officials disclosed Monday that a lab test found traces of the seal in the engine’s turbocharger.

“We still don’t know how significant that is,” Rich said Tuesday. “Under some scenarios it could mean very little would happen but under others it could produce catastrophic results.”

The Deis family had vacationed in Orange County and was on its way home to Camrose, Alberta, when the plane crashed minutes after taking off from John Wayne Airport.