Rudolf Kapustin, 76

Rudolf Kapustin, 76, Investigator Into Dozens of Airplane Crashes, Dies

By: MATTHEW L. WALD
New York Times

WASHINGTON, April 19 — Rudolf Kapustin, an air crash investigator whose career stretched from the 1963 crash that killed Patsy Cline to the A-300 crash in Queens last November, died on Wednesday at his home in Columbia, Md. He was 76.

The cause was pancreatic cancer, his family said.

As an investigator at the National Transportation Safety Board, Mr. Kapustin played an important role in more than three dozen major inquiries, and led the one into the crash of an Air Florida plane that took off from National Airport just outside Washington on a snowy day in January 1982 and hit the 14th Street Bridge over the Potomac River.

Mr. Kapustin came to the safety board at its founding, in 1967; before that, he was an investigator with the agency's predecessor, the Civil Aeronautics Board, where he began in 1962.

He retired from the safety board in 1986, and worked as a safety consultant. He was a frequent guest on television news programs.

As an investigator Mr. Kapustin was known for thoroughness and for refusing to be drawn into premature conclusions. After his retirement, he also saw flaws in more recent investigations that dragged on for years.

Commenting on the July 1996 in-flight explosion that destroyed T.W.A. Flight 800, a Boeing 747, off Long Island, Mr. Kapustin said four years later, "That report should have been out two and a half years ago."

"It had a fuel tank explosion, and we don't know what the ignition source was," he said. "But it takes a lot of guts to say we've got an accident that's undetermined."

Mr. Kapustin attended the Academy of Aeronautics (now the College of Aeronautics) in Queens. He began work as an engine mechanic at T.W.A. in 1945, two years before completing his studies. After eight years as a mechanic, he became a field representative for the Curtiss-Wright Corporation; he went to the Federal Aviation Administration in 1961.

Mr. Kapustin is survived by Vera Sedorovich, his wife of 50 years; a son, Douglas, of Dayton, MD; three daughters: Eleanor Louise Kapustin of Gaithersburg, MD, Elizabeth Marie Bryson of Elkridge, MD, and Rebecca Finnerty of Towaco, NJ; and five grandchildren.

Originally Published In The New York Times On April 20, 2002