CAA: GA News, "Two die in North Las Vegas Airport plane crash"

["Stephen Irwin" <stepheni@cwnet.com>]

Friday, April 28, 2000

Two die in NLV plane crash
By Keith Paul
LAS VEGAS SUN


A single-engine Cessna slammed into the ground and burst into flames Friday
morning at North Las Vegas Airport, killing the pilot and passenger,
witnesses and officials said.

Tom Winters was driving by the airport and saw the small plane "having
troubles."

"It's left wing was real high and every time the pilot tried to bring it
down the wind took it right back up," said Winter, a small-craft pilot since
1981. "The wind then took it and cartwheeled the plane into the ground."

Then the plane burst into flames about 9:45 a.m.

"There wasn't anything I could do," said Winters, adding that being pilot it
was just natural for him to look up when driving and notice the planes. "I'm
still shocked by it. I could hardly write my witness statement for the
police my hand was shaking so bad."

Firefighters from North Las Vegas and Clark County came to the crash site
along with a medical helicopter, but the two occupants of the plane were
dead. Their names were not immediately available, but airport officials said
the plane was apparently registered out of Arizona.

"They had made a couple of attempted landings and then crashed," said
Hillarie Grey, a Clark County aviation department spokeswoman. "There was a
report that the plane was on fire while in the air, that is not correct."

The plane crashed a short distance to the side of the 25 Runway in a dirt
clearing. No one on the ground was injured, Grey said.

The charred plane rested still upright on its wheels but its nose was
resting on the ground.

The airport was closed after the crash, but reopened less then two hours
later, officials said.

Winters, who said he pilots a plane like the one that crashed, said the
crosswinds were very strong at the time the plane was trying to land. He
estimated the crosswinds were blowing at about 35 mph.

"The wind just took the plane to the ground," he said.

Federal Aviation Administration officials were heading to the North Las
Vegas Airport located at North Rancho Drive and West Cheyenne Avenue to
investigate the crash. National Transportation Safety Board officials will
also investigate the crash.

The North Las Vegas Airport is second busiest airport in Nevada coming in
behind only to McCarran International Airport. In 1999 North Las Vegas
Airport has just about 230,000 takeoffs and landings. The airport handles
small, non-commercial aircraft, said Debbie Millett, a Clark County aviation
department spokeswoman.

The North Las Vegas Airport opened on Dec. 7, 1941, but the opening
celebration was cancelled because of the bombing at Pearl Harbor. Clark
County bought the airport in Oct. 1987.

Friday's fatal plane crash at the North Las Vegas Airport appears to be the
first fatal crash on the airport grounds since the county bought the
airstrip. NTSB records indicate there have been a couple of fatal plane
crashes near the airport or of planes that took off from the airport.

Two people were killed in an Aug. 20 crash into the front yard of a
northwest Las Vegas home as the pilot approached the North Las Vegas
Airport. Nine days later a pilot crashed in a vacant lot. The pilot had very
minor injuries, but the plane sustained heavy damage.

The last fatal aviation crash in Clark County occurred March 27 at the
Overton Municipal Airport when an 85-year-old Glenn Halls of Logandale
crashed his one-person gyrocopter shortly after takeoff. Halls, a long-time
pilot of small airplanes, was had apparently recently purchased the
gyrocopter and crashed during his first flight in it, according to NTBS
records.


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