Small Business Solutions

Underwater video from an independent researcher shows the mangled wreckage of a long-lost corporate jet that crashed into Lake Champlain more than five decades ago. Before sharing the video with NBC5 News, Gary Lefebvre of Colchester first showed it to relatives of the crash victims in a private, virtual discussion to help them better understand what happened to their loved ones.The jet crashed into the frigid lake in January 1971, shortly after takeoff from the Burlington International Airport. The five men on board, Donald Myers, George Nikita, Frank Wilder, Robert Ransom Williams III and Richard Kirby Windsor, have long been presumed dead following their ill-fated business trip to Burlington. However, the location of the crash site and the wreckage of the plane remained a mystery that went unsolved for well over a half-century.As NBC5 News reported in May, a team of underwater search and recovery experts announced they found the debris field. The discovery followed several unsuccessful expeditions to search for the wreckage.”They were always wondering, you know, why they didn’t find it over the years?” Lefebvre said in an interview with NBC5 News. “To all the researchers that have looked for this in the past it is a difficult site to find. It is very, very well-hidden.”NBC5 News agreed to not disclose exactly where the wreckage is, to protect the site from possible intrusions. After sonar located it earlier this year, Lefebvre sent remotely operated underwater vehicles into the depths of the lake to explore what’s left of the broken-apart jet. Lefebvre also took a series of still images he combined using special software to create digital models of what the fuselage and other components now look like sitting on the lake floor. He showed NBC5 News how you can even see a seatbelt in one of his digital models.The boat captain said his photos and video do not show anything that stands out to him as evidence of human remains or personal effects of the people who took off from Vermont more than 53 years ago but who never returned home to their families.”It kind of hits home knowing full well that, you know, there’s people that are affected out there,” Lefebvre said of the presentation about the video which he made to family members of the men presumed to have died in the crash. “There are family members that are using this for closure. Hopefully, they get some positive out of it.”Kate Stensland of North Hero was very close with her uncle, George Nikita, the pilot of the doomed plane.”My mother was never the same after George’s plane crashed,” Stensland recalled in an interview with NBC5 News. “Never the same.”Stensland said she never gave up hope, not even after more than a half-century, that the wreckage would one day be discovered.”He loved his little girl. He loved his wife. He loved his family,” Stensland said of Nikita. “And the other men had very similar feelings, too, when you talk to the kids.”Stensland said even though she does not have a physical grave where she can visit her uncle George, seeing Lefebvre’s video did provide an opportunity for healing.”It made me feel like I could take a deep breath,” Stensland said of the video, adding that it inspired her to reflect fondly on old memories. “‘I know where you are, and the other guys and everything,’ and that was the important thing. That was the important thing for me.”Lefebvre said he shared his video with aviation experts, who told him since the wreckage is in a relatively small area, they suspect that means the jet had a sudden, perhaps nose-first crash.”It had to have gone straight down,” Lefebvre said. “Which is one of the things that family members, I guess they were very warm to, is that they at least they know at this point that nobody suffered during this thing. This happened very, very quickly and very instantly.”There are still many questions about the incident, namely, what was going on mechanically with the jet in the minutes before the crash. The National Transportation Safety Board has made its official report of known facts about the case available on this website.The NTSB also posted what it has termed a wreckage identification report. Basically, that document lists the work done to verify whether the wreckage discovered in Lake Champlain is the plane in question. The agency said it believes it is.In response to an inquiry from NBC5 News, the NTSB said Tuesday it has no additional work on this case planned.