Months Later, Fatal Plane Crash Probe Continues

Seven months have passed since but the final report about the crash landing into the Watsonville Community Hospital campus that claimed a Santa Cruz family remains incomplete.

, according to the National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates flight accidents.

David and DeDe Houghton, both 44, and their sons, 12-year-old Luke and Ryan, 10, died in the fiery crash.

A preliminary report was posted to the NTSB website on July 21, two weeks after the accident. In it, crash investigators reported the Houghton family from Santa Cruz had just taken off from the airport and were destined for Groveland, near Yosemite, when their Mooney M20F rolled to the left and descended rapidly.

It skidded through a near-empty parking lot at the hospital, clipping treetops. Its propeller sliced gashes into the pavement before colliding with a closed OB-GYN clinic and bursting into flames. 

NTSB officials are still working on the probe of a plane crash in the Sierra in August 2010 that claimed a Watsonville flight student and his instructor. Gabriel Suarez, 21, of Watsonville and Bryan "Dill" McCullah, a 31-year-old Santa Cruz man, died when their small plane crashed near Emigrant Gap in the Sierra.

Eighteen months later, the final report on the accident has not been completed.

The investigation of a noninjury is much faster.

an the pilot, a student practicing aerial applicaiton by spraying water on the field, walked away from the helicopter wreckage unhurt.

The NTSB probable cause report on the crash was released in early October. In it, investigators found the pilot tried to clear a wire running perpendicular to his flight path by descending beneath it, putting him about 5 feet above the field. One end of the main rotor blade struck the pole supporting the wire and the helicopter went down.