Mail plane crashes in Billings

[Tallpine]

I sure hope our mortgage payment wasn't on this plane ...

http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2008/05/23/news/local/16-plane.txt

A small aircraft carrying mail crashed into a building in the Heights this morning.

Mike Fergus, Federal Aviation Administration spokesperson, said the plane was a Beechcraft 1900, a common type of charter plane. The plane crashed and exploded at 1:25 a.m., shortly after taking off from Billings Logan International Airport. It was headed for Great Falls, he said.

[Fly320s]

USPS mail in a freight hauler?  Maybe if it is important mail, a.k.a. Priority or Express ,etc.  Probably not first-class or lower mail.

Lots of bank checks are carried that way.  At least they were before the age of electronic transactions.

[LAK]

I think USPS uses smaller charter services to carry mail to the more rural and remote places where the larger carriers don't fly.

[Fly320s]

Makes sense.  But, at 42 cents per letter, that plane better be stuffed to the stringers.

[stevelyn]

I think USPS uses smaller charter services to carry mail to the more rural and remote places where the larger carriers don't fly.

Yup, the USPS subsidizes small communter airlines to carry and deliver mail to rural areas. It's common here in AK where most communities are accessible by air only. I'm surprised to see them doing it in L48 though.

[wmenorr67]

With gas prices where they are might think about going back to the Pony Express.

[Tallpine]

USPS mail in a freight hauler?  Maybe if it is important mail, a.k.a. Priority or Express ,etc.  Probably not first-class or lower mail.

Well, if they had a couple Priority packages that absolutely have to be there overnight, they might as well throw in a few thousand pounds of first class while they are at it 

* * *

The deceased gentleman was their senior and most experienced pilot.  I doubt that he just got careless looking at the map and flew into the ground.  No emergency radio calls so he apparently wasn't trying to go around and land again (the wind has been from the east during all this rain, so he might have taken off "backwards" from the usual westward takeoff).

I'm suspecting some sort of catastrophic airframe or mechanical failure.  Maybe a control surface failure or possibly a problem with the pitch on one of the props that threw him out of control.  One of the witnesses said it looked like the plane was upside down just before impact, and another said it sounded like one or more props was/were reversing