Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Deadly NLV airplane crash investigated

Some aircraft accidents that have occurred involving the North Las Vegas Airport:

Sept. 24: Two private planes collided in a fiery crash. Both pilots were treated for moderate injuries at University Medical Center and released on the same day.

May 21, 2001: A Beechcraft Bonanza crashed near the intersection of Michael Way and Mossman Avenue after taking off from the North Las Vegas Airport. A pilot was killed in the crash.

April 28, 2000: Two people died in the crash of a small plane near a runway.

Aug. 20, 1999: Two people died when a private plane crashed in the front yard of a northwest Las Vegas home near the airport.

Moments before a single-engine plane crashed in a fireball at the North Las Vegas Airport, killing six people on a rain-soaked Christmas Day, the pilot had reported engine trouble to the control tower, crash investigators confirmed this morning.

Four adults and two children were killed in the crash, FAA safety inspector Ron Williams said. The identities of the dead were not released this morning.

The six-seat Beechcraft A-36 Bonanza aircraft had just taken off at 1:21 p.m. Thursday when the pilot radioed in that he was attempting to make an emergency return to the airport, an FAA spokesman said.

The pilot reported engine problems to the tower just before crashing, Howard Plagens, senior air safety investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board, said this morning.

Investigators today were looking over the burned-out wreckage of the plane which remained strewn just 10 feet from the chain link fence separating the airfield from Carey Avenue, a half-mile east of Rancho Drive. The plane's tail, broken off in the crash, appeared untouched by the flames.

The wreckage will be moved into a hangar at the airport later today for further examination.

The victims' bodies remained at the Clark County coroner's office this morning as authorities continued to attempt to notify next of kin.

The aircraft had been scheduled to fly to Laughlin, FAA spokesman Bruce Nelson said. He said he did not know if a flight plan had been filed.

Witnesses said that the plane appeared to shudder in the air before crashing into a 12-foot-deep concrete culvert at the airport's boundary.

Mike Miller, a helicopter pilot who witnessed the crash, said he heard "a commotion" and turned around to see the plane explode in a fireball followed by a thick plume of black smoke.

"There were lots of flames," Miller said. "It was totally engulfed. It was like a Roman candle, a ball of flame."

Miller, 40, had just dropped off his wife and sons at Texas Station to see the movie "Cold Mountain" when he and one of his sons stopped to fill the family's pickup truck with gas.

"Pilots empathize with pilots, but that's six people," Miller said, gazing at the tail sticking out of the ditch where it had crashed and an overturned passenger seat nearby.

"It was a shame nobody was able to give them any help," Miller said. "Even someone with a fire extinguisher couldn't have put out the flames."

Betty Harold and her husband were in a hangar at the North Las Vegas Airport and saw the smoke from the crash.

"My husband and I saw the big, black plume of smoke, but we couldn't get to it," Harold said.

A North Las Vegas Airport rescue crew responded first to the wreck, said Hilarie Grey, spokeswoman for the Clark County Department of Aviation.

The six-seat aircraft had been fully fueled before it left the airport, Grey said.

Both the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the crash, Grey said.

Two of the three North Las Vegas Airport runways were closed after the crash, Grey said, but one remained open and operating.

It took coroner's deputies an hour to remove the bodies from the wreckage Thursday afternoon.

An airport crew worked to repair the chain link fence, which had a hole in it caused by the crash.

FAA records indicated that the aircraft was built in 1980. Its owner was listed as Pat Car Air Inc., of Wilmington, Del.

Grey said the airplane was based at the North Las Vegas Airport.

The airplane was similar to one that crashed at the intersection of Michael Way and Mossman Avenue in May 2001.

The North Las Vegas Airport is the second-busiest in Nevada, behind McCarran International in Las Vegas. It is one of the 54 busiest in the nation.

The airport averages about 600 takeoffs and landings each day. In 2002 there were a total of 218,296 takeoffs and landings.

A number of airplane crashes at and near the North Las Vegas Airport have occurred in recent years, including eight in 2002.

Thursday's plane crash was not near any home or business.

State Sen. Raymond Shaffer, R-North Las Vegas, chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee, proposed a law during this year's legislative session that would have reduced the number of takeoffs and landings at the airport. The senator has said he may introduce the law again unless Clark County officials reduce traffic at the airport.

Sun reporter

Dan Kulin and the Associated Press contributed to this story.

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