After a dozen years, the litigation surrounding the fatal crash of a Gulfstream IV has finally been settled. The crash on takeoff at the former Palwaukee Municipal Airport (now Chicago Executive) northwest of Chicago on Oct. 30, 1996, killed pilots Martin Koppie, 53, and Robert Hampton Whitener, 50; flight attendant Christine Mio Anderson, 33; and the lone passenger, Arthur Quern, 54, CEO of Chicago-based Aon Risk Services and chairman of the Illinois Board of Higher Education.
According to 1998 findings by the NTSB, Koppie lost control of the accelerating twinjet as it encountered crosswinds of up to 35 knots and veered off the airport’s narrow runway. N23AC then hit a 2.5-foot-deep drainage ditch located 20 feet off the runway, shearing off its landing gear, and the airplane slid across a taxiway at full power. It then struck a small berm, briefly becoming airborne before bursting into flames, finally coming to a halt past the airport’s northern fence in the parking lot of an apartment complex.
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