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Plane crash leaves void on airwaves

Published Tuesday, October 27, 2009 11:38 AM

By David Berman
Summerville Journal Scene ®

Pete, Randy, Ed and Dallas.

Off-air, that’s how most people knew Peter Radding, James Randolph Hargenrader, Edwin Steeble and Dallas Carter, the four men who lost their lives Oct. 21 in a pre-dawn plane crash in Jedburg.

But in the world of ham radio, the men had different handles — their callsigns. To the many amateur radio operators worldwide who communicated with the quartet, Radding was known as W2GJ, Hargenrader as K4QO, Steeble as K3IXD and Carter as W3PP.

“Those callsigns get to be very familiar,” said Richard Moseson, editor of CQ Amateur Radio magazine.

News of their deaths rattled members of the global ham radio community and soon hundreds of “hams” began holding vigil on the Journal Scene Web site. As of Wednesday, there were 327 online comments attached to the story of the crash, with radio operators from as far away as Russia and New Zealand leaving condolences as well as their own callsigns.

The crash occurred just days before the start of the most popular ham radio contest in the world, the annual CQ World Wide DX Competition.

Last year the contest, which is sponsored by the magazine, saw the participation of 50,000 hams, Moseson said.

When Radding’s twin-engine Piper PA-23 fell from the sky and burst into flames shortly after takeoff last week, he and his passengers were on their way to the Bahamas, where Moseson said they would have had a clearer signal to compete on, and would have scored more points by operating from outside their own country.

While the men “were pretty well-known in the contesting world,” the outpouring of grief and support also underscores a broader connection among radio operators, he said.

“It’s an affirmation of what we hams have understood for a long time — it is a community and a worldwide brotherhood,” Moseson said. “So when there’s a tragedy like this, it’s like losing a family member.”

Moseson found poignant what a fellow ham said last Friday: “We lost four of us this week.”

As the ham radio community mourns the loss of four of its own, a probe into what caused the crash continues.

Although a preliminary report is not expected for several days, and the official cause may take more than a year to determine, the National Transportation Safety Board last week discussed some early findings from its investigation.

NTSB investigator Shawn Etcher said the plane banked to the left after takeoff. Judging by marks found on trees near the wreckage, it appears the plane climbed to an altitude of at least 90 feet before crashing, he said.

Considering radar coverage does not begin until 500 feet, “we know he (pilot Peter Radding) did not get to that altitude,” Etcher said.

The temperature was 40 degrees and there was a calm wind at the time of takeoff, Etcher said. Weather has not been ruled out as a factor, however.

“We're not ruling anything out,” he said. “We're just gathering information.”

The wreckage is being taken to Atlanta for closer examination, Etcher said.

He said the engines are the most recognizable pieces among the wreckage. The aircraft’s aluminum skin is gone, “but there’s a lot of structure (in the frame) we can look at.”

Autopsies showed that the men died from blunt force injuries sustained during the crash and not from the fire, Dorchester County Coroner Chris Nisbet said.

Contact David Berman at 873-9424 ext. 214 or dberman@journalscene.com

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