BY TOM O'NEILL
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Pilot Steven Moses spent his last day at an Indiana Air National Guard base attending training and a social function, then gave a fellow guardsman a 20-minute airplane ride before returning to Blue Ash, according to an aviation investigator's preliminary report released Tuesday.
Dr. Moses never made it back, his Cessna 152 running out of gas and crashing head-on into a van Aug. 15 on Ronald Reagan Highway -- a mile short of his destination, the Blue Ash Airport.
There is no indication he refueled, nor any sign of a fuel leak or fuel system malfunction, investigators said.
Dr. Moses, 27, a surgeon-in-residence at Good Samaritan Hospital and a 1989 Lakota High School graduate, was dead at the scene. Two women in the van -- Josephine Rolle, 63, of Bond Hill and Edith Sharp, 58, of Forest Park -- also were killed.
According to the report by investigator Brian Rayner of the National Transportation Safety Board, Dr. Moses spent the day at the guard base in Terre Haute, Ind., where he gave physical exams as part of his medical training program.
Afterward, a base commander said Dr. Moses "briefly attended a unit social function after work." The doctor and an airman left, then returned overhead "approximately 30 minutes later and buzzed the party . . . two or three times."
The unnamed airman, the report said, told investigators Dr. Moses dropped him off with the engine running, then departed for Blue Ash.
At 11:02 p.m., Dr. Moses radioed the control tower at Cincinnati - Northern Kentucky International Airport.
Dr. Moses: "Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is N93784 calling emergency in flight. . . . I've run out of gas and I'm about 2 miles south of the Blue Ash Airport. . . . I cannot make the airport, I repeat, I cannot make the airport. . . . I'm in trouble here."
Tower: "Where are you?"
Dr. Moses: "There's a road here and I'm going to follow it and try to land on the road."
Tower: "Do you know what road it is?"
Dr. Moses: "No idea, no idea, sir."
Mr. Rayner was in the Cincinnati area investigating a crash earlier Aug. 15 in which a Wyoming surgeon, Dr. John Krieg, was killed when his Beech A-36 small plane crashed during a missed approach near Amelia in Clermont County.
According to a preliminary report, also released Tuesday, a witness heard Dr. Krieg's engine running smoothly, but "could not see the airplane due to thick fog."
