Three hurt in small-plane crash

Friday, July 22, 2005 | 11:11 a.m.

How two U.S. Forest Service employees and a pilot survived the mangled wreck of their twin-engine plane that crashed Thursday as it tried to take off from North Las Vegas Airport remained a mystery today.

The three -- a pilot and two smoke jumpers, were taken to University Medical Center, where Forest Service officials said their injuries were not life-threatening and ranged from minor to serious.

One of the injured, smoke jumper Ron Rucker, age not released, of Redmond, Ore., was treated and released from UMC on Thursday, the Forest Service said. The identities and conditions of the other two people were not immediately released.

The National Transportation Safety Board, Federal Aviation Administration and Forest Service are all investigating the cause of the crash, officials said.

The injured crew was met at the hospital Thursday by a Forest Service supervisor and a management officer, agency spokeswoman Robbie McAboy said today. But she said she did not know what the injured workers told the officials about the incident.

She said Rucker will remain in Las Vegas for a short time to help investigators sort out the details of what happened Thursday afternoon.

McCarran International Airport spokeswoman Debbie Millett, speaking on behalf of all area airports, said she could not comment because the NTSB had taken over the investigations. It was the fourth crash at a local airport this year.

The other smoke jumper, a woman from Oregon, had been injured in a forest fire last summer and had been working on an air crew this year, said Mark Blankensop of the Forest Service's Las Vegas office.

The pilot, of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, had been contracted by the Forest Service.

The plane attempted to take off at 5:07 p.m. with temperatures above 105 degrees Thursday to survey the Spring Mountains for any signs of new fires, McAboy said.

"We've had a lot of lightning in the past day and a half," McAboy said.

The Forest Service often flies over threatened wildland areas when fire conditions are "severe," as they are this summer, McAboy said.

"That way we can catch fires at an early stage," she said.

A total of seven new fires sparked by lightning Wednesday night burned in the northwestern Spring Mountains Thursday night.

The plane managed to reach about eight feet off the ground when it slammed into the ground south of a runway near Carey Avenue.

The plane was destroyed, leaving both propellers spinning and endangering rescue crews attempting to help the three people from the craft.

One of the firefighters managed to escape the plane, but the pilot and the smoke jumper needed help to leave the aircraft, McAboy said. There was no fire on the plane, she said.

After the crash, the plane's left wing stuck up into the air, most of its covering torn off. Shredded metal was all that was left of the front of the 1964 Aero Commander turboprop.

The 11-seat aircraft was owned by Commander Northwest, an Alaskan corporation based in Anchorage, according to Federal Aviation Administration records.

It has been a rough two weeks for Forest Fire staff. A 45-year-old Carson City woman firefighter died in a one-car traffic accident on July 5 at the Lee Canyon and U.S. 95 intersection, said Dewey Warner of the Las Vegas Forest Service office.

A Forest Service engine arrived at the scene and extricated the woman, who was pronounced dead at the scene.

Over the last few years the Forest Service has had trouble maintaining its contracted tankers and other planes used to survey wildfires.

In June 2004 a pilot fighting a fire near St. George, Utah, was killed after his plane went down.

The Forest Service has had so many aircraft crashes, that it instituted new safety rules for firefighting planes in April 2004.

In the wake of three fatal firefighter aircraft accidents blamed on cracked wings, including a 2002 crash of a Nevada-based air tanker, the National Transportation Safety Board recommended new safety measures, hastening maintenance and beginning inspections for stress fractures.

The board's investigation of the three accidents determined that maintenance and inspection programs used on current firefighting aircraft did not account for increased safety risks from advanced age and severe stresses on the firefighting environment, the board's report said.

The Forest Service and Department of Interior terminated contracts for 33 larger, fixed-wing planes following crashes of the tankers.

It was not known whether the pilot of the downed plane Thursday had radioed the airport tower with a distress signal, McAboy said.

The North Las Vegas Airport has been the scene of several fatal crashes in recent years.

A single-engine plane crashed in a fireball at the North Las Vegas Airport on Christmas Day 2003, killing six people on a rain-soaked takeoff. The six-seat Beechcraft A-36 Bonanza aircraft had just taken off when the pilot radioed in that he was attempting to make an emergency return.

On Sept. 24, 2003, two private planes collided in a fiery crash near the airport. Both pilots were treated for moderate injuries at University Medical Center and released on the same day.

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

Two people died in the crash of a small plane near a runway at the airport on April 28, 2000, and two more people died when a private plane crashed in the front yard of a northwest Las Vegas home near the airport.

The other crashes at local airports this year include a May 5 incident at the North Las Vegas Airport where two people died, a May 25 non-injury helicopter crash at the Jean Sport Aviation Center and a July 20 non-injury incident where a Cessna ran off the runway at the North Las Vegas Airport.