HOWLAND — Toxicology results for the six people killed in the June 29 Howland plane crash indicate the person in the co-pilot seat, Timothy Blake, had alcohol, fentanyl and norfentanyl in his blood.

“The postmortem drug screen demonstrated acute mixed fentanyl and ethanol intoxication as well as cannabinoid use,” Blake’s autopsy investigative report from the Trumbull County Coroner’s Office states.

The report does not address whether those substances in the amounts detected would have impaired Blake in any way. The report states that it is “unknown if (Blake) took any prescription medications.” An Ohio Automated Rx Reporting System report on Blake “showed one prescription for Oxycodone in 2023,” the report states.

“Estab-lished in 2006, OARRS collects information on all outpatient prescriptions for controlled substances and two noncontrolled substances (gabapentin and naltrexone) dispensed by Ohio-licensed pharmacies and personally furnished by Ohio prescribers,” according to the Ohio Board of Pharmacy website.

Blake, 55, of Hubbard, was described in some media reports and in the coroner’s report as co-pilot of the Cessna 441, twin-engine aircraft that crashed in Howland shortly after leaving the runway of the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport in Vienna.

But the initial National Transportation Safety Board report did not call Blake the co-pilot and instead referred to him as one of the “five passengers.”

PILOT

The pilot was Joe Maxin, 63, of Canfield. Maxin’s autopsy report stated that there was “no significant natural disease or anatomic evidence of an acute (pre-crash) natural event” that contributed to his death. He also was not intoxicated, the report states.

“The postmortem drug screen was negative for alcohol and illicit drugs,” Maxin’s autopsy report states. “The current investigation and autopsy findings support that Mr. Maxin died due to the combined effects of thermal injury and blunt force thoracic trauma incurred in a private airplane crash,” the report states.

A section of each of the autopsy reports for the six people who died states that the “four passengers of the airplane were recovered from the area of the airplane corresponding to the passenger seats,” but it was “not possible to determine which occupant was in each seat.”

It continued: “The pilot and co-pilot were recovered from the front area of the airplane near the pilot-co-pilot seats.” The crash happened at 6:54 a.m. after the aircraft flew low over the treetops about 1.2 miles after leaving the runway at the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport.

The aircraft was headed to Bozeman, Montana, on a vacation trip. The aircraft crashed in a wooded area near a private residence at 500 Spring Run Road. A Trumbull County Coroner’s Office investigator went to the scene of the crash.

“Due to unsafe conditions, I was unable to enter the area of the airplane to perform a formal investigation,” the investigator wrote in the report, which was signed by Trumbull County Coroner’s investigator Tiffany Feskanin and Trumbull County Coroner Lawrence D’Amico.

“However, I documented the actions taken by other agencies as they occurred, including the removal of the occupants of the wreckage,” according to Feskanin.

The separate autopsy reports for each of the six who died were signed by Dr. George Sterbenz, forensic pathologist and Trumbull County deputy coroner.

The NTSB is investigating the crash. The Howland Township Fire Department responded to the crash site, and Lt. Tony Fairbanks “entered the wreckage area and confirmed all occupants were deceased,” Feskanin’s report states. Other agencies that responded to the scene were the Federal Aviation Administration and Ohio State Highway Patrol.

Local pilot and 21-year former aviation instructor for American Airlines Chuck Johnson told the newspaper in recent weeks that the Cessna 441 is a “single-pilot airplane,” though there is a second seat next to the pilot in the cockpit.

AUTOPSY REPORT

Blake’s autopsy report states that the ethanol level in his blood was 0.063 grams per 100 milliliters. It states that Blake’s blood had 78 nanograms per milliliter of fentanyl and 27 grams per milliliter of norfentanyl. His blood also tested “presumptively positive” for cannabinoids but does not give an amount.

The deaths of the six people on board were all ruled an accident, according to the coroner’s reports. The manner of Blake’s death was blunt force thoracic trauma. The cause of death of the other five people was “combined thermal injury” as a result of the fire that consumed the aircraft “and blunt force thoracic trauma,” the documents state.

The four passengers in the passenger compartment were James Weller Jr., 67, and his wife, Ronnie Weller, 68, and their son and daughter-in-law, John Weller, 36, and Maria Weller, 34, all of Hubbard.

Nothing in the autopsy reports for any of the Wellers or Maxin indicated any was intoxicated at the time of the crash.

NTSB

This newspaper contacted the NTSB to ask whether the agency considers the information from Blake’s autopsy to be relevant to its investigation of the cause of the crash.

Spokesman Peter Knudson said the “left seat is considered the pilot seat. The one on the right is a passenger seat that can also be occupied by a pilot.” He noted that there are full flight controls on the right side where Blake was sitting, but “Just because someone is in that right seat does not mean they are a pilot. It just means they are sitting in that seat. The left seat we always consider the pilot seat.”

He said at times the NTSB will say that an aircraft had a “pilot and a pilot-rated passenger. And sometimes we do not know who was flying the plane. Without recorders, there is no way to know who was at the controls at the time,” he said.

“Really, any time there is more than one person on board, there is no way to know with absolute certainty who was manipulating the plane, who was manipulating the controls,” he said. “We will assume we have the pilot in command. He is the one manipulating the controls.”

He said if a person in the front passenger seat “happened to have a pilot’s certificate,” it is possible that at cruising altitude, maybe he or she might “take over” the controls. “But we don’t have any reason to believe that guy was” flying the plane during takeoff.

He said the issue of the person in the right seat having drugs and alcohol in his blood is probably not going to make it into the NTSB documents that will be released later that detail the information the NTSB is gathering.

Within 12 to 24 months after the accident, the NTSB releases a final report, he said. “At the same time we release the final report, we will open the accident docket,” he said.

The accident docket contains documents, such as “information about the pilot, the pilot’s training, his certificate, the hours (of flying experience), the maintenance of the airplane, photographs, interview summaries, maybe transcripts potentially, all of the factual information that our investigators have used to to construct the narrative of the circumstances of the event and do their analysis and propose a probable cause that is then approved by the (National Transportation Safety) board,” he said.

“I don’t think there is going to be anything about that individual sitting in the right seat unless we have some reason to believe he or she was piloting the aircraft,” Knudson said.

“Unless we have some reason to believe there were two pilots manipulating the controls, where the pilot on the right was manipulating the controls. Unless there is some compelling reason to believe that, then we will assume the pilot in the left seat, who filed the paperwork for the flight, that that was the pilot who we will assume was operating that aircraft,” he said.

It is “not at all unusual that we have two pilots sitting up there” in the cockpit, he said. “Who is the pilot? The pilot is the one in the left seat,” he said.

BLAKE’S BROTHER

This newspaper spoke with Blake’s brother, Tom Blake, about his brother’s toxicology report and was asked whether he thinks it is relevant to the NTSB investigation.

He said no.

“According to the report, he was the passenger anyway,” he said. “I’ve been in that seat many times.” He agreed that it is not uncommon for someone with a pilot’s license to sit in the seat to the right of the pilot.

“Or not for that fact too,” he pointed out, meaning for people without a pilot’s license to sit there. “I’ve sat in it numerous times on flights with Tim.”

Western Reserve Port Authority Executive Director Anthony Trevena also was asked if he thought Blake’s toxicology information is relevant to the investigation into the cause of the crash.

The port authority’s spokesman replied, “It would not be appropriate for us to speculate as NTSB’s investigation is ongoing. We will continue to assist them as they conduct their investigation, which will provide a thorough examination of any factors in the final report.” The port authority runs the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport.

PRELIMINARY NTSB REPORT

The three-page NTSB report into the crash released in July states that witnesses on the ground about 1.5 miles from the crash site heard a “noticeable pitch change in the engine sound” just prior to the crash and that the aircraft only reached an altitude of about 100 feet.

California pilot Juan Browne analyzed the data he obtained from the flight on his YouTube channel soon after the crash and stated that NTSB investigators will want to look at the controls on the badly damaged aircraft to determine whether a “controllability issue,” such as whether a “control lock” was left on in the aircraft prevented the pilot from properly controlling the aircraft.

He said they will also want to look at whether the aircraft was over “maximum gross weight of 8,850 pounds because of it having six people on board and full fuel.”

And they will want to look at whether the aircraft had an engine malfunction and whether an issue called “feathering” of an aircraft propeller might have contributed to the inability of the pilot to overcome a possible aircraft mechanical failure, he said.