Posted on 21 September 2011.
By Kelci Parks
A Las Vegas man walked away from a plane crash here on Saturday with only minor injuries.
Pilot Roger Swenson was attempting to land at Calvada Meadows Airport when his single-engine plane clipped some trees and skidded across a nearby highway. The plane came to rest upside down.
Pahrump Valley Fire and Rescue responded to the accident just before noon. NCSO deputies were also briefly on scene.
The investigation into the accident is being conducted by the National Transportation Safety Board.
The exact cause of the accident is still unknown.
“The plane lost power while negotiating an approach to the airport,” said Fire Chief Scott Lewis. “It lost power, struck the tree tops and a perimeter chain link gate. It then skidded across the highway and then flipped over into the desert.”
Although he spends most of his time in Las Vegas, Swenson owns a hangar at the Calvada Meadows Airport. The privately-owned airport consists of 354 individual lots.
Stan Davis, the President of the Calvada Aeropark Association, says he hasn’t heard from Swenson since the accident, but has gathered a few insights concerning the crash.
“He did survive it with minor contusions, but I have not spoken with him, nor has anybody else at the airport here,” said Davis. “I met with a bunch of people this morning here at the airport though, and we talked about it. We’re surmising, based on what one of the guys saw,” he said.
“Apparently, he lost power on his approach to the runway and rather than hit the trees and hit the mobile homes up on the north side of Simpkins road, he elected to divert and miss those houses, but in the process lost control of the airplane,” Davis continued. “He apparently tried to apply power and there was no power available to him. He pushed in the throttle and nothing happened, so we don’t know why. He was just making a normal approach, he reduced power for his descent, and when it looked like he needed a little more power he added throttle and there was no power to be had.”
Davis said at that point there was just one option for the pilot.
“He had to do all he could do at that time, which was control the crash,” he said. “We don’t know why it happened, the FAA Federal Aviation Administration doesn’t know why, the National Transportation Safety Board does not yet know why; it’s a mystery.”
The plane is a 206B Rotorcraft officially registered to a company out of Albuquerque, N.M., according to an FAA check of the tail numbers.
This crash follows a similar incident in early March of this year when a pilot walked away unscathed after crash landing a fixed-wing single engine Cessna 210 just east of the airport.
No comments:
Post a Comment