From Curt Lewis
"Windshield Failure Results In Dramatic King Air B200 Emergency
According to media reports, the aircraft experienced a partial failure of
the windshield at an altitude well in excess of 20,000 feet, creating a
spider web type of failure ont he windshield and the decompression of the
cabin. Media reports also suggest that the flight crew lost consciousness
of, and/or control of the aircraft, resulting in some mode of control
recovery below 10,000 feet (reported as 7000 feet by at least one media
outlet). The aircraft subsequently executed an emergency landing at Cape
Girardeau Regional Airport in Missouri.
Examination of the video (seen in the attached screen captures), shot by
KFVS, which also caught the fairly uneventful emergency landing, reveals the
loss of most of the horizontal stabilizer and elevator assemblies, wrinkled
and bent main wings and a windshield that was nearly useless, visually, due
to pervasive spiderweb-style cracking throughout its surface. Statements
attributed to the pilots (who left the area by rental car, shortly after
landing), indicated that they regained control of the aircraft below 10,000
feet where the aircraft was involved in a steep vertical descent and (then)
not under positive control. The subsequent recovery created severe stresses
on the aircraft and the wrinkling and bending evident in pictures of the
wing suggests that aircraft was stressed in a manner not too far form the
ultimate structural yield point.
The flight crew was identified as Pilot Sheldon Stone and co-pilot Adam
Moore who indicated that emergency oxygen equipment failed when they
attempted to use it. Despite that, they regained functional consciousness
after descending some 20,000 feet. Pilot Stone told local media that "We
were both getting drunk really fast. I remember thinking, really slowly,
'Hey, I'm not getting any oxygen, what's wrong here?' But I was so loony
already at that point I couldn't even solve the problem if it could be
solved. I just sort of thought to myself, 'I've got to hurry,' but
everything was fading."