It was the loss of control and stalling of the plane while practicing maneuvers during an instructional flight to prepare for a commercial pilot practical examination that led to the fatal crash last year of a four-seat 1965 Beech 35-C33 in a residential neighborhood in Hilltown Township in Bucks County, federal authorities reported this week.
According to the Bucks County Courier Times, the National Transportation Safety Board said in a final report last week that the owner of the plane, 55-year-old Brian Filippini of Philadelphia, was flying with instructor Alfred George Piranian, 77, of Chalfont, to prepare for an examination.
According to the report, the board said the probable cause was Filippini’s exceedance “of the airplane’s critical angle of attack” at 1,600 feet, during maneuvers that “resulted in aerodynamic stall and a loss of airplane control.”
The Bucks County Coroner’s Office determined both men died of blunt-force injuries; Piranian suffered a heart attack just three weeks earlier and may have played a role, per reports. Filippini had 733 hours of flight experience, and Piranian had 11,500 hours of flight experience, per reports.
There were no other injuries in the crash.
The aircraft landed about 66 yards away from Pennridge Central Middle School, and the impact sent a propeller blade through a home on the evening of Feb. 24, 2022, lodging itself in a second-floor bedroom, narrowly missing a crib.
Filippini served as president of Concord Management Group International, a life science, healthcare, and technology recruiting and consulting firm, since 1997, according to LinkedIn. Filippini graduated from Ohio State University in 1989, where he was on the track team. He ran Concord alongside his wife Jennifer Leigh, who serves as principal and co-founder and was also an Ohio State University graduate.
The Beechcraft took off from Doylestown Airport and was destined to land at a small, rarely used, private, permission-required-to-land airstrip called Gunden Airport, south of the neighborhood where it crash landed around 5 p.m. The Gunden Airstrip owner, James M. Gunden, of Schultz Road in Sellersville, did not know of the plane’s arrival, which “a handful of planes” have used in the past 20 years. The airport opened in July 1985.
Last year, Hilltown Township Police Chief Christopher Englehart called Filippini a hero for avoiding homes and nearby Pennridge Central Middle School.
Police were dispatched to the intersection and found a single-engine plane burst into flame upon impact and caused an exterminator business vehicle parked nearby to catch fire, police said. The house sustained damage from part of the propellor penetrating through the bedroom wall, police said.
Witnesses reported seeing and hearing the plane struggle to remain airborne, police said. Several home security cameras captured footage of the crash, police said.
According to his obituary, Filippini, a passionate supporter of nonprofit Angel Flight East, was survived by his spouse, his three children Remi, 24, and twin boys Carlo and Sante, 20, his sister, Alicia Filippini (Peter Gissing) and his niece Izabella Gissing and nephews Cooper Gissing and Nick Piner.
According to his obituary, Piranian was born in Switzerland and was the oldest of seven children. He earned his BSE and master’s degrees in mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton University.
He was an aerospace engineer for the U.S. Navy at the Naval Air Development Center Warminster from 1967 to 1993, and continued working at the Naval Air Station Patuxent River until retiring in 2015. He worked on the aerodynamic designs of the F-14, F-18, and F-35, and certified all weapons carried by the F-14 Tomcat, the Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) and the Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) on the F/A-18 Hornet, and the F-35 (Joint Strike Fighter).
Piranian was survived by his mother Magdalena Piranian of Ambler; his wife Jeannette of Chalfont; son Ed Piranian and his wife Jennifer of Wasilla, Alaska; daughter Heidi Bauer and her husband Steve of Bethesda, Maryland; daughter Karen Burgman and her husband Michael of Fountainville, Pennsylvania; daughter Lori Mulcare and her husband Bobby of Greenwich, Connecticut; daughter Lisa Ferguson and her husband John of Lansdale; six siblings; and 15 grandchildren.
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