'Spiraling Descent' in Plane Crash That Killed Long Valley's Adickes

Witness accounts of the plane crash that killed Long Valley native Joshua Adickes were "largely consistent" in describing a steady descent, "nose down spin to water contact," according to a preliminary investigation conducted by the National Transit Safety Board.

The report, published July 8, is subject to change and merely describes the results of witness interviews conducted by investigators into the June 30 crash that killed Adickes, 27, and Thomas J. Geoghegan Jr., 43, just off the coast of Ocean City, Md.

The report does not speculate on a cause of the crash. It could take at least a year before the NTSB determines why the plane went down, a spokesman told nj.com.

Adickes, a 2004 West Morris Central graduate, was a passenger in a China Nanchang CJ-6A airplane piloted by fellow Ocean City, Md., police officer Geoghegan, who had 819 hours of flight experience, as well as 204 hours in the China Nanchang, the report said.

They departed between 3:30 and 3:45 p.m. June 30, and the plane crashed into the water at 4:05 p.m., the NTSB report said.
 
A witness who was familiar with the plane told investigators he heard the plane's engine about 15 minutes prior to the accident, and he and his friends "watched one loop and one barrel roll and described the maneuvers as 'slow' and 'lazy' and some distance from shore," the report states.

The witness said the plane flew out of his sight; he didn't notice it again until it began a "spiraling descent" toward the water.

"'He had never been that low or that close to the shore,' " the witness told investigators.

"He described the airplane in a shallow, nose-down descent and added that the airplane’s attitude was nearly flat, and that it 'pancaked' into the water with a slapping sound, 'like your hand slapping against the water,' " the report states.

The plane was recovered 30 feet below the ocean's surface and was largely intact, save for its left wing and fractures due to impact.

Investigators also recovered a camera from the cockpit of the small plane, which will be forwarded to the NTSB Recorders Laboratory in Washington DC.

Adickes was a football player, wrestler and lacrosse player at West Morris Central who became an Ocean City police officer in 2012. 

"Josh was the kind of kid that would do anything you asked and never said a word or complained about it," West Morris Central assistant wrestling coach Jim Balella said. 

"He was the type of student and teammate you wanted the other kids to be like. He was a positive kid always helping others."