PHOTOS-Mike Connell, Witness in Bush/Rove Vote Tampering, Dies in Plane Crash

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The original complaint, filed Aug. 8, 2006, alleged that in the 2004 election in which George W. Bush narrowly won Ohio (a key election state), election officials, especially then-Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, deprived African-Americans and students from voting freely and having their votes properly counted. The suit also mentions "private contractors" and "breaking "the bi-partisan chain of custody of ballots," presumably where Michael Connell and a company called SmarTech in Chattanooga, TN, figure in.
Connell's website shows (or did show) a long client list of neoconsertive politicians and predatory corporate interests.
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Michael L. Connell and his wife Heather operated the website- and IT-consulting firms New Media Communications (technomania.com) with offices listed as at Suite D, 3046 Brecksville Rd. in Richfield, OH, and another firm, GovTech Solutions (govtechsolutions.com) with offices at 302 N. Cleveland-Massillon Rd. in Akron, OH. Neocons hire New Media to get elected and GovTech afterwards.
According to FlightAware's Live Flight Tracker service, Connell had flown his plane, a single-engine Piper Saratoga with the tail number N9299N from Akron-Canton to the College Park, MD, airport near Washington, DC, on Thursday morning, December 18, 2008. According to the Stark County (OH) coroner, Connell had on him a receipt for a breakfast he had in Washington on Friday, Dec. 19. He flew back home that afternoon using the same airports, as the map shows.
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The flight log shows everything going normally up to and including the last notation. Connell was at 3300 ft and about 6 or 7 minutes out from the airport. It was at about this point that he would have throttled back the plane's engine and begun a steady descent.
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Four minutes later, instead of Connell being at less than 1000-ft altitude near the airport, he was flying very low and very fast from the west over houses on Charolais St. in Uniontown, OH. The Piper impacted the front yard at 2017 Charolais St. NW; plowed through the grass, taking out a flag pole and a circle of landscaping blocks around it; and slid and tumbled past the vacant (foreclosed) house and across the driveway and into a swing set. The tail rested near a basketball hoop and a small group of pine trees. Michael Connell died instantly.

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The Greentown fire department had received a 911 at 5:55 p.m., arrived within 4 minutes, and put a small fire on the exterior of the house and another in the fully engulfed fuselage, all in another 5 minutes. Wreckage was strewn over 100 yards.

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Connell was an experienced pilot with an instrument flight rating.

CONNELL, MICHAEL LOUIS
Airman's Address :
AKRON, OH
FAA Region : Great Lakes
Date of Medical : Oct, 2007
Class of Medical : 3
Expiration of Class 3 : Oct, 2009
Airman Certificates : Private Pilot
Airplane Single Engine Land
Instrument Airplane

He owned the plane and was experienced in flying it. The registered owner is a company at the same address as New Media Communications. The plane reportedly is based at the Akron-Canton Airport. The pilot himself lived in Bath Township (Jeffrey Dahmner's old home town).

-number : N9299N
Aircraft Serial Number : 3257018
Aircraft Manufacturer : PIPER
Model : PA-32R-301T
Engine Manufacturer : LYCOMING
Model : TI0-540 SER
Aircraft Year : 1997
Owner Name : SIERRA-NOVEMBER AVIATION INC
Owner Address : 3046 BRECKSVILLE RD
RICHFIELD, OH, 44286-9399
Type of Owner : Corporation
Registration Date : 21-Aug-2007
Airworthiness Certificate Type : Standard
Approved Operations : Normal

Julie Fano said the house at 2017 Charolais St. had been vacant since the spring. She and her husband, Joe, were eating dinner when they heard the plane’s engine cutting in and out.

Apparently the plane had entered an abnormal flight condition called a "stall," in which the propeller is unable to provide enough air flow over the wings to provide the lift to keep the plane from falling. A stall can normally be recovered from unless the engine is unable to deliver adequate power, or control surfaces on the wings or tail are inoperable. It will take months before the National Transportation Safety Board renders a verdict on the cause of the crash.
Weather was apparently not a factor.
If the engine had failed, Connell should have been able to make an emergency landing in a nearby field, as all pilots are trained to do. It is possible that he panicked and that the cause will be ruled as "pilot error."
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