Investigation continues in plane crash that left six dead in Maryland
Plane crash in Gaithersburg, Md., shattered picture of a happy family
(about 5 hours later)
Investigators combed through wreckage Tuesday in a Gaithersburg neighborhood where a small plane crashed into a home, killing six people, including a mother who was trying to shield her two young children.
Late last week, the Gemmells bundled up and went to a Christmas tree lighting in downtown Rockville: Marie, Ken and their kids, Arabelle, 7, Cole, 3, and even little Devin, not yet two-months old.
Officials from the National Transportation Safety Board and fire and police authorities from Montgomery County are expected to talk to witnesses and sort through the scene Tuesday to try to figure out what caused a small jet plane — an Embraer EMB-500/Phenom 100 — traveling from North Carolina to tumble into 19733 Drop Forge Lane and hit two other houses on the street.
Arabelle hit the outdoor ice rink. Cole got to meet Santa. Marie stood to the side, holding Devin.
The pilot, two passengers, the mother, Marie Gemmell, 36, and two of her children — 3-year-old Cole and 6-week-old Devon — were killed. Michael Rosenberg, 66, was flying the plane.
“That was them,” said Pallavi Rana, a close friend. “They were always together.”
The passengers have been tentatively identified as David Hartman, 52, and Chikioke Ogbuka, 31, of Raleigh, N.C., Montgomery County police said on Tuesday afternoon.
The family of five became two Monday morning after the most random of tragedies. A small jet trying to land at an airport near their Montgomery County community crashed in a neighbor’s yard, sending a fuel-laden wing catapulting through the side of the Gemmells’ house.
At the time, Ken was at work; Arabelle was at school.
Marie, Cole and Devin were home.
Investigators believe that the three were upstairs. From below, there was a sudden, furious eruption of flames, fed by jet fuel mixed with oxygen rushing into the house through large holes the wing had created.
(Audio: 911 calls after crash: ‘It went straight down’)
(Audio: 911 calls after crash: ‘It went straight down’)
With a flight data recorder in hand, NTSB investigators should quickly determine what caused the crash, although their methodical process may not reveal the crucial details for several months.
“The fire was immediate and intense,” said Capt. Darren Francke, commander of the Montgomery Police Department’s major crimes unit.
At a news conference Tuesday, NTSB board member Robert Sumwalt shared some preliminary information that analysts had gleaned from the flight data recorder.
Marie made her way to a bathroom with Devin and Cole, detectives believe, and held one of the boys in her arms and the other between her legs. It was probably just a matter of minutes, authorities said, before all three died of smoke inhalation.
Sumwalt said that the entire 57-minute flight was recorded. The information seemed to rule out some potential causes of a crash — there was no evidence that a bird had gotten into the engine or that the engine had catastrophically failed for some other reason, Sumwalt said.
“She took that bathroom as an area of refuge,” said Capt. Michael Redding, a fire investigations commander in the county. “To be trapped like that, it’s terrible.”
He also said that the plane did not break apart until it hit the ground.
As friends and relatives learned what Marie did — covering her children, trying to save them — they expressed no surprise.
At the time of the crash, the landing gear was down, he said. Data as well as the observations of two other pilots who were at the Montgomery County Airpark at the time indicated that the plane pitched up and down and rolled left and right significantly before crashing, Sumwalt said.
“She loved those kids more than anything on the face of the Earth,” said John Sadlik, a friend.
By midday Tuesday, a Web page for the family of Marie Gemmell had raised more than $152,000. The site tells of how Gemmell’s husband, Ken, and the couple’s oldest child were the only survivors of the family.
Until Monday, the Gemmells’ life seemed defined by smiles and cheers. They hosted parties. They took the children to D.C. United Soccer games. The liked to eat together at the Dogfish Head Alehouse in Gaithersburg. Marie wouldn’t just say, “Hi,” to waitresses, said Haleigh Powell, who works there. She would say, “Sit down and have a beer with us,” according to Powell.
Jill Lyons, who has known the Gemmell family for several years and whose children at one point attended the same day care the Gemmells used, said Tuesday that friends in the area were gathering clothes and gift cards to pharmacies and restaurants for the surviving father and oldest daughter.
Ken and Marie grew up in New Jersey, and they were married Sept. 25, 2004, according to their Facebook pages.
Lyons recalled Marie Gemmell as a doting, caring mother. The two had exchanged messages on Facebook as recently as Saturday, talking about how big their kids were getting. They were trying to set up a play date for Lyons to see the newborn, Devon.
Marie would write about it a decade later, while pregnant with Devin: “10 years ago today. It was bright, clear sky and warm and I was likely having a mimosa right now. Today 2.5 kids, a dog, turtle and a house later its rainy and cold and I’m on my way to work with no mimosa. No matter the weather or what we are doing its still a great a day. Happy 10-year Anniversary Ken Gemmell.”
“She was one of the sweetest, fun-loving, generous people you would ever meet,” Lyons said Tuesday. “She always had a smile on her face.”
Ken Gemmell’s Facebook page also tells the story of a family deeply entrenched in modern family life: soccer practices, football games, garden tomato harvests, pride in a daughter’s progress in reading.
Authorities were on the scene overnight, guarding the crash site, and some roads reopened in the neighborhood early Tuesday after having been closed all day Monday.
“So in an effort to slow Arabelle down in her reading because she reads [too] fast and doesn’t always grasp all the concepts,” Ken wrote, “I have given her my college Calculus book. Strangely she took it without an argument, and now she wants to trace some of the shapes and graphs.”
As the fire from the crash spread, Marie Gemmell rushed to a windowless bathroom on the second floor of her home and tried to protect her children, officials said.
Marie replied: “There is no doubt she is your kid. Her love and great skills at math make me wonder if she is mine.”
“She tried to save these kids,” Police Chief J. Thomas Manger said of the mother of three, who friends said was on maternity leave from her job.
As Cole spent time at the Cuddles and Crayons day-care center, near their home in Gaithersburg, Marie became close with Rana, who ran the place.
(Air traffic control audio: ‘There’s nothing left’ of this house)
And this month, Cole was on his way to being a successful student “at a big boy school,” as he liked to say. His favorite color was blue, an he always wanted to sit in a blue chair and eat off blue plates. He was potty-trained last week, and he was proud.
“She had nowhere to go,” he added. “She couldn’t get out of the bathroom. One kid was between her legs, and the other was in her arms.”
“He told his mommy he wanted 10 pairs of underwear,” Rana said. “He was so smart. We always said he’s either going to be an engineer or an architect.”
Police said Tuesday that the mother and children died of smoke inhalation.
With the arrival of Devin — and with Marie staying home with him — the Gemmells decided to reduce Cole’s day care to part-time — just Tuesdays and Thursdays. He was at home Monday for the first time after the switch, Rana said.
Those aboard the plane were headed to a meeting at the Food and Drug Administration offices in Montgomery County. Rosenberg was a veteran pilot but it was the second time that he had crashed while landing at the Montgomery County Airpark, close to where the plane went down Monday.
On Monday, as news of the crash spread, Rana ran toward it, and he saw the Gemmell’s house in flames. “It was really confusing,” she recalled. “We didn’t know where anyone was. We were all lost. The basement light was on, so we were hoping they were in the basement. We were living in hope.”
In March 2010, Rosenberg suffered minor injuries when he crashed a Socata TBM 700, a turbo-propeller plane. In that incident, he also was coming from North Carolina.
Ken also rushed to the house and arrived while it was still in flames. Firefighters told him that they couldn’t account for his wife and sons.
The Montgomery County airport is an uncontrolled runway, which means that, as opposed to larger airports, there is no air traffic control tower directing final approaches. The county-owned airport opened in 1959 to relieve aviation traffic into what is now known as Reagan National Airport. Since the emergence of Baltimore-Washington International Marshall Airport and Dulles International Airport, the facility in Gaithersburg has transformed into one used by small planes and business travelers.
Three people aboard the plane also died. All were from North Carolina: Michael Rosenberg, 66, David Hartman, 52, and Chijioke Ogbuka, 31.
(Video: Police say death toll climbs to six)
(Video: Police say death toll climbs to six)
The airport has about 100,000 annual departures and arrivals and is the fourth-busiest general aviation airport in Maryland.
Rana was able to go pick up Arabelle and bring her to the day-care center, where a relative picked her up.
There have been two accidents at the Gaithersburg airport this year.
“We tried to talk to her normally,” said Rana, who thought that the family should tell the little girl what happened.
On Sept. 13, a U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Cessna nosed over after landing. The pilot and two passengers were not injured. Three weeks earlier, the pilot of a Piper plane was seriously injured when he made a forced landing after his engine failed. There have been 12 crashes at the airpark since 1996, none of them fatal.
Jill Lyons, who has known the Gemmell family for several years, said Marie enjoyed entertaining — for friends and for children in the neighborhood. When Cole turned 3, she threw an Elmo-themed birthday party. For Halloween, the Gemmell children dressed up as characters from the movie “Frozen.”
On Monday, witnesses described a loud boom and later a smoky, fiery scene on the street. Two other homes were also struck by the plane.
Brian Polesnak of Clarksburg said Marie Gemmell was always glad to help others, whether that meant organizing a happy hour to raise money for Hurricane Sandy victims or accompanying him to Tiffany’s when he was not sure how to pick out a first-anniversary gift for his girlfriend.
Tracy Everett said he was driving his work van when he looked up and saw that the plane was “unsteady” and in trouble. “It was wobbly,” he said. “It was 100 to 200 above the trees.” He said the plane then did a rolling dive to the left, and then “I saw smoke.”
Just last week, Polesnak said, he talked to Marie about the Christmas trip to New York she was planning to take with her family.
He said he drove to the scene and “saw and heard a secondary explosion. It was so powerful you could feel it under your feet.”
Alice Crites, Dana Hedgpeth and Julie Zauzmer contributed to this report.
Dianne Gayle, who lives on the street, said she heard a plane overhead as she was working in her living room. That’s not unusual, given how close she and her neighbors live to the airport.
Anyone wishing to donate to funds set up for the Gemmell family can visit www.gofundme.com/gemmellfamily
Then she heard a boom, and her house seemed to shake. She jumped up, looked out her window and saw a home down the street engulfed in flames. Gayle called 911. “The house is on fire! The house is on fire!” she remembered telling the operator. “A plane crashed into the house! A plane crashed into the house!”
Gayle walked outside. “It was a total inferno,” she remembered.
Neighbors said Ken and Marie Gemmell had lived in the house for about seven years. Their children often played in the front yard.
Ken Gemmell had left the house a few hours before the crash. The couple’s oldest child was at school at the time of the crash.
After rushing back Monday, Ken Gemmell was led to the home, knowing that his wife and children had not emerged. As the house still was in flames, he stood in front of it, staring blankly for 10 minutes before being led away.
Late Monday, Ken Gemmell had changed his Facebook profile photo to one of his wife, Devon and Cole. Another photo showed him and his wife at a festive occasion. Several friends had posted notes of condolence.
A former colleague of Marie Gemmell, who worked at Davis Construction for a dozen years before taking another job several months ago, mourned her loss.
“She’s really going to be missed,” Brian Polesnak said of his friend, whose Facebook page said she was a native of New Jersey. “She always loved her family, loved her kids. She always had a smile or a joke.”
Lyons, the family friend, said Tuesday that the Gemmells’ oldest girl attends Goshen Elementary School.
“How do you explain this to a second-grader?” Lyons said. She said she told her own children – a 9-year-old girl and a 7-year-old boy – about the tragedy last night.
“I told them a terrible thing has happened,” Lyons said. “They have gone to heaven.” She said, “It makes you hug your own kids and family that much tighter.”
Lyons said Marie Gemmell had posted on her Facebook page Monday that she was looking forward to spending the day snuggling with her boys and being home and lazy. She said the couple enjoyed drinking draft beer and were big D.C. United and Denver Broncos fans.
Lyons said Marie loved to entertain – kids in the neighborhood and friends. In October, they had a birthday party for Cole, who turned 3. It was an Elmo-themed party, Lyons said. For Halloween, all three kids were characters from the Disney movie “Frozen.”
Lyons said when Devon came along, Marie was “so happy to have that third baby and complete their family.”
Dana Hedgpeth, Julie Zauzmer and Miles Parks contributed to this report.
