UPDATE:
(Man. A tear came to my eye when I read this report. Very sad.)
8 die in plane crash
CHIEFTAIN PHOTOS/BRYAN KELSEN
Pueblo County Sheriff's Department personnel, members of the Pueblo County Coroner's office and a National Traffic Safety Board official work the crash site of a Cessna Citation 560 airplane that went down Wednesday east of Pueblo Memorial Airport. Two crew members and six passengers aboard the corporate jet, owned by Circuit City Corp., were killed in the crash.
Corporate jet crashes during approach at Pueblo airport
By PATRICK MALONE
THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN
All eight occupants of a corporate jet died Wednesday when it crashed on its descent to Pueblo Memorial Airport.
The twin-engine Cessna Citation 560 belonged to Circuit City Stores Inc., and four of the people who died on board were employed by the company, according to Circuit City spokesman Steve Mullen. A pilot, co-pilot and two others, whose affiliation with Circuit City is unknown, also were killed.
The cause of the crash has not been determined, and the identities of the victims have not been released pending notification of their families.
Chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, Ellen Engleman Conners, arrived at the crash site Wednesday night. She said foul play is not suspected, based on a preliminary investigation.
"We're looking at it as an accident at this point," she said.
The plane crashed 1 mile north of Colorado 96 on a ranch about 5 miles east of the airport, and 5 miles west of the Pueblo Chemical Depot at about 9:15 a.m.
A resident of an isolated farmhouse on the ranch heard the crash and stepped outside to find the burning wreckage several hundred yards away from his Chico Road home. He called 911, according to Pueblo County Sheriff Dan Corsentino.
The Pueblo County Rural Fire Department extinguished the fiery wreckage and found all eight occupants of the jet dead, the sheriff said.
The wreckage spanned a half-mile. Few pieces of the plane remained, and those that did were badly charred.
Pueblo County Sheriff Dan Corsentino (center) addresses members of the media during a press conference near the site where a Cessna Citation 560 jet crashed.
"Significant. Fractured. Splintered," Corsentino said, describing the crashed jet. "From my perspective, it's very sobering. The fuselage was demolished."
The plane was bound from Richmond, Va., to Irvine, Calif. It was traveling in tandem with a second Circuit City jet and had clearance to land in Pueblo to refuel. It had made an earlier fuel stop in Missouri.
The second jet also carried eight people, four of whom were employed by Circuit City. It was trailing the downed jet by 10-12 minutes and landed safely.
Pueblo is a common fueling stop along Circuit City's corporate flight route from Virginia to California, Corsentino said.
"They made this flight numerous times," he said.
Some occupants of the second jet were driven to Denver by sheriff's deputies Wednesday to catch flights to their home states. The pilot and co-pilot stayed in Pueblo to be interviewed as part of the crash investigation, and the cockpit recorder from that jet was extracted to search for possible clues to why the other jet crashed.
Investigators recovered the cockpit voice recorder from the wreckage of the first jet. It will be sent to the NTSB lab in Washington, D.C., to be reviewed, Engleman Conners said.
Occupants of the second flight were reeling from the news that the other plane crashed.
"They're devastated. They're very saddened," Corsentino said. "They had friends on that flight."
The crash happened while the jet was on its landing descent as it approached the airport from the east. Weather conditions were cold, with some freezing drizzle and fog.
Engleman Conners acknowledged that reports of icing on the plane will be among the factors reviewed during the investigation.
Air space at Pueblo Memorial Airport remained open after the crash.
Investigators from numerous government agencies and hordes of media from throughout Colorado descended on the usually quiet ranch after the crash.
The Southern Colorado Joint Terrorism Task Force, comprised of local law enforcement officers and agents from the FBI in Southern Colorado, were among the agencies that responded to the crash. Although terrorism is not suspected, Corsentino said the task force responded because of the crash's proximity to the Pueblo Chemical Depot, where aged mustard agent and munitions are stored in fortified bunkers.
"I have no suspicion that it was more than an accident," Corsentino said. But he deferred further questions to the NTSB, which has taken over the investigation into the cause of the crash.
Engleman Conners said the NTSB will review a number of factors in determining the cause of the crash, including the plane's maintenance records, the weather it traveled through on its way to Pueblo and during its approach to the airport here, as well as the pilot's history. She said the investigation will resume at first light today.
Late Wednesday, the investigation still was in the recovery phase. Investigators from the Pueblo County Coroner's Office had been on the scene for hours and were still in the process of removing the bodies of the crash victims at 9 p.m. The victims' remains will be stored at a local mortuary until their families make funeral arrangements.
Engleman Conners said the wreckage will be left at the crash site for as long as necessary for the NTSB to gather information for its investigation - most likely a number of days.
The full investigation into the crash could last up to a year.
