Two people believed aboard small plane in fatal crash

Friday, April 4, 2003 | 10:03 a.m.

A single-engine private plane crashed and burned at about 8 a.m. today in the northwest Las Vegas desert, the Las Vegas Fire Department said.

Two people were believed to have been on board and apparently were killed, said Tim Szymanski, spokesman for the fire department.

The plane went down in a stormwater detention basin area and went unnoticed until a plume of smoke filled the skies, people in the area said.

"I didn't hear it go down, but there was construction on the beltway that would have drowned out any noise)," said Gary Velasquez, principal at Centennial High School, about two miles from the crash site.

Szymanski said the crash occurred in an area that is difficult to reach by vehicle. However, one fire engine managed to get to the site and put out the fire, he said.

The National Transportation Safety Board said this morning it had just received word of the crash from Las Vegas law enforcement officials and had not yet dispatched an investigator to the scene.

It was the second crash of a small plane in the northwest valley in a week. Sunday night a Beechcraft Bonanza slammed into a drainage ditch next to the Rancho Mirage apartments at 2991 N. Rancho Drive. The only person aboard that plane, pilot Joseph Randall Edwards, survived.

The NTSB's preliminary report about Sunday night's crash notes that the plane "made a forced landing and collided with obstacles following a loss of engine power during departure from the North Las Vegas airport."

"The flight was operated by the pilot/owner (who) was seriously injured, and the airplane was destroyed. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed and no flight plan had been filed. Witnesses at the scene reported that the airplane engine quit and the airplane struck a road and retaining wall before cartwheeling into a ditch."