A federal investigation into the 2006 crash of a private plane that killed three people in Gainesville has determined the cause of the crash to be inconclusive.
On March 31, the National Transportation Safety Board released a report stating the twin-engine Beech B-60 Duke that crashed into a Gainesville Regional Airport terminal was so badly destroyed that it is impossible to definitely determine why the plane dove into the building.
The pilot, Giuseppe Basile, 69, and two passengers, Stephen Varosi, 40, and Varosi's nephew, Michael, 12, were all killed in the crash on Easter Sunday, April 16, 2006.
According to the board's report, maintenance personnel were completing an annual inspection of the plane when Basile asked them for permission to use the plane for a weekend trip.
At that point, inspectors had found that the plane's autopilot had been installed without proper paperwork.
Basile, a retired professor at UF's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, said he had designed and built the autopilot himself and was in the process of getting the proper paperwork for the installation.
They released the plane to Basile two days before the accident with the inspection incomplete and gave him the autopilot in a cardboard box. Components of the autopilot were found in the wreckage.
"It is possible that improper installation or malfunction of the autopilot resulted in the loss of control," the report stated, but the investigation could not find that to be the conclusive reason for the crash.
A witness who saw the crash a little before noon that Sunday said the plane took off, rolled to the left, seemed to stabilize, rolled sharply to the left again, flipped upside down and nose-dived into the terminal building, exploding on impact, according to the report.
Another witness said she heard a loud bang and saw a "massive fireball" erupting from the airport.
