14 CFR Part 91: General Aviation
Accident occurred Wednesday, September 07, 2011 in Winfield, KS
Aircraft: RIFFEL JERRIS L RV-7A, registration: N554JR
Injuries: 1 Fatal.
This is preliminary information, subject to change, and may contain errors. Any errors in this report will be corrected when the final report has been completed. NTSB investigators either traveled in support of this investigation or conducted a significant amount of investigative work without any travel, and used data obtained from various sources to prepare this aircraft accident report.
On September 7, 2011, approximately 1005 Central Daylight Time, a RV-7A experimental amateur-built airplane, N554JR, owned and operated by a private individual, was substantially damaged when it impacted terrain near Winfield, Kansas. The pilot, the only person that was on board the airplane, was found fatally injured. The personal flight was being operated without a flight plan under the provisions of 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed at the time of the accident.
A witness heard the airplane just before it impacted the ground. On arriving at the airplane wreckage, he noticed that no one was in the wreckage. Local law enforcement officials located the pilot’s body approximately 3/4 mile aaway from the airplane wreckage.
Update: Cowley County Officials have identified the body as the 63 year-old pilot, Jerris Lynn Riffel, from Denton, TX. He was flying northbound in a single ignition plane when the crash occurred.
Emergency crews are on the scene of a plane crash in Cowley County.
911 dispatchers tell Eyewitness News the plane was found near 111th and 62nd Road, northeast of Winfield, between Udall and Atlanta.
Kansas Highway Patrol says the plane is registered out of Texas but took off from northern Kansas. Officials say the plane dropped off of radar about two miles before crashing. Wreckage is about 3/4ths of a mile away.
The body of the pilot was found about one mile from the plane crash.
The plane has been described as a small fixed wing -single engine craft. It is registered to a person in Denton, Texas.
Source: http://www.kwch.com
COWLEY COUNTY, Kansas – The FAA is investigating the crash of a small fixed-wing aircraft that went down Wednesday morning about nine miles east of Udall.
For a while, authorities could not find any victims. Shortly after 1 p.m., though, they announced they found the pilot's body. He has been identified as 63-year-old Jerris Riffel, of Denton, Texas.
Officials are still trying to determine how his body got so far away from the wreckage. It was found about a mile NW of the plane. They say no one else was on board.
A resident in the area tells KSN they thought it was a crop dusting plane and thought nothing of it flying so low.
Searchers have found the body of a pilot whose plane crashed north of Winfield this morning. The wreckage of the plane was discovered at about 10:15 Wednesday near 111th Street and 62nd Rd.
"I just heard a zzzZZZ, POP!," said Clyde Watt, who was out tending his ground when he realized something was wrong. "That was when he hit the ground."
Watt immediately walked toward the wreckage to see if he could help, but was surprised to find nobody.
"I couldn't see nobody," Watt said. "It went through a fence and took out about 50 yards of my fence and I expected to find somebody, but there wasn't anybody there."
Investigators searched for two hours before finding the pilot of the 1-seat plane about a mile north of the wreckage along 52nd Rd.
The Federal Aviation Administration arrived at the scene at about 2:00 Wednesday to begin investigating the crash, but emergency management officials at the scene were left to wonder if the pilot somehow bailed out of the prop plane when he realized he was going to crash.
The name of the pilot has not been released, but the airplane appears to be registered out of Denton, TX.
Source: http://www.kake.com
