WEST GARDINER – Pilot Jeanette Symons experienced a string of problems even before her six-seater Cessna jet got off the ground during an ice storm Feb. 1, according to a preliminary report released Tuesday.

In the final minutes of the flight, Symons told a flight controller that she was having instrument trouble and did not know where she was turning, according to the National Transportation and Safety Board report.

A short time later, the plane went down in West Gardiner. Symons, 45, and her 10-year-old son Balan were killed in the crash. The cause remains under investigation.

Snow and sleet were falling the night Symons took off from the Augusta State Airport. According to the report, Symons made a series of missteps even before her plane was airborne, failing to turn on runway lights and at one point, steering into a ditch.

About 5:30 p.m., the Cessna Citation’s engines were started and the plane began to taxi, according to the report. A fixed base operator representative at the Augusta airport reported that he soon noticed that the plane was not where it was supposed to be.

“He also noticed the airplane was not on the taxiway but rather on the grass area on the south side of the asphalt taxiway,” the report states. “At that time, the ground was covered with snow and ice.”

Another plane scheduled to take off from the airport had canceled the flight due to bad weather, according to the report. Ice coated cars parked in the lot and light snow had turned to freezing rain. But Symons declined to have her Cessna Citation jet de-iced by Maine Instrument Flight before taking off, according to an official from that group. She prepared for takeoff about 5:30 p.m. in preparation for flying to Lincoln, Neb., the report states.

After steering the jet onto the grass, her problems worsened.

“The FBO representative noted the pilot did not turn on the airport’s taxi and runways light via the common airport frequency radio channel. It was observed that the airplane traveled through a ditch, which was covered with ice and snow,” the report states. “At about that time, the airplane’s engines were heard at a high rate of power. It was later discovered that the airplane’s left main tire broke through the ice and became stuck in the ditch.”

The plane was steered across the grass and the pilot announced she was on the wrong runway, according to the report. The FBO representative turned on the runway lights and the plane took off moments later.

After takeoff, the pilot contacted an air traffic controller and reported the plane was at 1,000 feet and climbing to 10,000. Radar contact was made with the Cessna when it was roughly two miles southwest of the airport.

About a minute later, the pilot declared an emergency and stated: “We’ve got an attitude indicator failure,” the report states. The pilot then declared that she was not certain which way she was turning. Radar lost the plane shortly after that.

About 5:49 p.m., police and other emergency departments received several 911 calls from people reporting a plane crash. The wreckage was later found approximately six miles south-southwest of the Augusta State Airport.

The report released Tuesday is preliminary and does not offer a probable cause for the crash. That component of the investigation may not be ready for another year.

Symons was a telecommunications and Internet entrepreneur, considered one of the wealthiest women in the United States. Her oldest child, Balan, was the inspiration for the Industrious Kid social networking site, Imbee.com, a child-friendly site that provides blogs and social posting for children ages 8 to 13 that can be monitored and controlled by parents.