BY BILL BIRD wbird@stmedianetwork.com October 8, 2012 10:05PM

Emergency crews have rescued both the pilot and passenger of a plane that crashed into Xsport Fitness in Naperville on Wednesday. No one else was injured at the fitness center.

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Updated: October 9, 2012 8:48PM

A local pilots failure to abort his takeoff has been cited by the National Transportation Safety Board as the probable cause of a crash two years ago in which a single-engine airplane smashed into a health and fitness club in far west-central Naperville.

Improper annual inspection of the aircraft and a hole in the planes exhaust pipe were contributing factors in the Oct. 6, 2010 crash of the 33-year-old, Piper PA-32R-300 into the XSport Fitness center near 75th Street and Route 59, NTSB investigators said.

NTSB officials published their conclusions Thursday in a probable cause report on the crash that seriously injured pilot Lloyd McKee, 66, and his wife, Maureen McKee. They live in the unincorporated Aero Estates subdivision, which lies east of Route 59 between 79th and 83rd streets and about 100 yards due south of XSport Fitness. The McKees were flying to Pittsburgh at the time of the crash.

Neither the probable cause report nor a 12-page, NTSB factual report published in July identified Lloyd McKee by name. The factual report indicated McKee was interviewed in November 2010 by Federal Aviation Administration inspectors.

McKee told inspectors winds were from the west on the day of the flight, and that there was a direct crosswind as he began to taxi down the runway. He said he did not believe there was a tailwind.

When asked if there were any out of the ordinary observations of his power settings, airspeeds, manifold pressure and engine speed settings, McKee replied all appeared normal, according to the report. He said he knew the airplanes load was lighter than normal and was in limits, and that all appeared to be well as he reached the runways midpoint.

Continued here:
Pilot error caused 2010 Naperville plane crash: NTSB