It was the deadliest plane crash in Akron’s history.
Last November, a pilot, co-pilot and seven passengers were killed when their twin-engine plane, operated by ExecuFlight of Florida, crashed into apartments just a few miles from the Akron airport.
No one on the ground was hurt.
On Tuesday federal investigators in Washington shared their most detailed findings yet.
“We found a flight crew, a company, and FAA inspectors fell short of their obligations in regard to safety,” NTSB Chairman Christopher Hart said.
The NTSB claimed the plane was too heavy when it took off from Dayton and blamed the pilots for inaccurately reporting the weight of their passengers.
The pilots were also accused of failing to use required checklists prior to landing and using the wrong landing approach as they neared the airport.
The NTSB also shared new information about their employment history, revealing that they had both been terminated by recent employers.
The news came the wake of a bombshell dropped by one of the company’s former employees, a pilot, who had been fired.
He claimed the captain did not feel safe with his co-pilot, and that the company rigged its records after the accident to show planes were fixed when they were not.
ExecuFlight declined to comment for this story.
Monday night, new accusations came to light about the the charter company and its practices.
It's all right there, in NTSB documents.
Details from depositions in which Donnie Shackleford, a former pilot for Florida-based Execuflight, told investigators that records were rigged after the accident.
Paperwork that was altered to show planes were fixed, when in fact there was no maintenance.
There are details about the two pilots as well. Reservations the pilot had about flying with the copilot, saying "he didn't feel like it was safe."
That was one of several quotes from the fired employee quoting the pilot saying there wasn't enough experience between the two of them.
Look at this quote: "if they put me and Oscar together, we're going to get ourselves killed".
He goes on to say before he was fired from Execuflight he was told, "This is what we're going to say. He changed the story on his this email about things I didn't say."
And Donnie Shackelford goes on to say that he believes he was fired because "I wouldn't play the ballgame with them and they wouldn't agree with it".
Read Donnie Shackleford's complete deposition here.