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By CINDY MAHAN
Rappahannock News Staff Writer
They were headed home to Ohio after vacationing at Nags Head, N.C. when their plane slammed into the side of Compton’s Peak in Shenandoah National Park.
The Peoples’ family, consisting of parents William H. and Mary, their daughter Nicole, 4, and two children Nicholas, 13, and Nathaniel, 11, children from his previous marriage, made their last stop Aug. 16 at Shannon Airport near Fredericksburg to refuel their 1966 Piper Cherokee. The wreckage was not found until Aug. 24.
According to Virginia State Trooper C. Wayne Sumner, theisite of the crash was at about 2,700 feet up Compton’s Peak above the Skyline Drive in Rappahannock County about 12 miles south of Front Royal. The plane crashed about midpoint between Compton Gap and Jenkins Gap.
Trooper Sumner also said that bad weather prevailed on Aug. 16 and 17, which was backlash from the hurricane which hit Georgia. “It was very overcast and foggy,” he said. Apparently the plane exploded on impact, and the bum area was 60 by 100 feet. He also said that the last time the plane was spotted on radar was at 1:46 p.m. on Aug. 16.
Mr. Peoples had a private pilot’s license for a single engine airplane, but he was not qualified to fly by instrument flight rules (IFR), according to Linda Whitfield of the Airman and Aircraft Registry in Oklahoma City. If qualified to fly IFR; a pilot can fly through many kinds of weather, such as fog, that other pilots not so qualified steer clear of.
Mr. Peoples had been licensed since May 1990, but he had not renewed the medical exam, which expired on June 5, 1993. Private pilots are required to undergo a medical exam every two years.
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