CHARLESTON, SC NEWS - LIVE 5 WCSC Breaking News, Weather, SportsCoroner ID's 4th crash victim; NTSB takes over investigation

Coroner ID's 4th crash victim; NTSB takes over investigation

By Live 5 News Staff email | twitter

DORCHESTER COUNTY, SC (WCSC) - Four people died when a small plane bound for Florida crashed shortly after take-off in Jedburg, said Federal Aviation Authorities.

By Thursday morning, Dorchester County Coroner Chris Nesbit had positively identified all four crash victims as James Randolph "Randy" Hargenradar, Edwin Steeble, Peter Radding, and 67-year-old Dallas Carter of Laurel, DE.

Hargenradar, Steeble and Radding lived in the greater Charleston area, said Nesbit. The four were headed to Fort Pierce, Florida to pick up two other passengers before heading to the Bahamas for a ham radio convention.

[Read Anthony Miller's report "Friends remember men lost in plane crash"]

The plane, a twin engine Piper PA-23, took off from Summerville Airport's runway 24 before 6:30 am Wednesday. The plane went down 50 yards beyond the runway with four people on board, according to authorities.

"It's extremely severe. One of the propellers has not been located at this point. The engine is in a traverse position, upside-down, a lot of charred foliage around the site," said Jason Ward, the Dorchester County Administrator.

The plane and the bodies on board were burned so badly, it was difficult to make a positive identification until Wednesday afternoon. Only a wallet of one of the men survived, said Nesbit. Autopsies will be performed Thursday, and dental records will be compared to positively identify the other three men on board.

The plane was registered to Peter Radding of North Charleston, a board member of the AngelFlights organization. 

Typically flight plans from the Summerville Airport would be filed with the FAA tower in Charleston, but authorities said they were not activated for this flight.

"If they had been filed, we would have known exactly who was taking off at 6:20, would have been pretty confident," Ward said.

Federal Aviation Administration officials led the investigation Wednesday. NTSB officials arrived Thursday morning and took over the investigation.

[Read Harve Jacobs' report "Weather ruled out as cause of deadly plane crash"]

The plne managed an altitude of 90 feet before the plane crashed and burned, said NTSB officials. "There's definitely been a fire there. There's quite a bit of ash, if you will, from the air frame and parts like that," said Shawn Etchens of the NTSB.

Etches said that weather has been ruled out as a contributing factor. He is hopeful that some of the valuable GPS equipment onboard will have some information saved about what happened before the plane went down.

"We have indications it might have been in a bank prior to it hitting the top of the trees," Etchens said.

NTSB spokesman Keith Holloway says the investigator will likely remain at the Summerville Airport through Friday and could release a preliminary report in about 10 days.

Holloway says it could take 18 months to determine the cause of the crash.

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