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Midair collision near Denver

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EagleRJ

Are we there yet?
Joined
Nov 27, 2001
Posts
1,490
DENVER — Two small planes collided and crashed into a residential neighborhood Friday, killing four people in the aircraft and injuring seven on the ground.





There were no survivors on either plane, Denver Manager of Safety Tracy Howard said. Crews were still searching for other possible victims.

A twin-engine plane crashed into yard, narrowly missing a house and garage. Two people died in that plane, Howard said.

Two people aboard the other plane, a single-engine aircraft, were killed when it crashed into a house, fire officials said. "That plane blew up. It disintegrated," police spokeswoman Virginia Lopez said.

It was not clear whether anyone was in the house when it was hit.

Six people in the neighborhood, including a 2-year-old, suffered minor injuries from flying debris, said Bev Lilly of St. Anthony Central Hospital. They were in good condition. A firefighter also suffered minor injuries.

The Federal Aviation Administration identified the planes as a twin-engine Piper Cheyenne II and a Cessna 172 Skyhawk.

National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Arnold Scott told KCNC-TV the Cessna was bound for Cheyenne, Wyo., from Centennial Airport in Denver. The Piper took off from Jefferson County Airport northwest of Denver and was bound for Centennial Airport.

Ed Mascarenas, 36, was driving through an alley when heard a loud noise, looked up and saw a plane spinning toward the ground. He said it crashed between a house and a garage.

Mascarenas said he ran to the wreckage and tried to pull open the door but failed. "Nobody got out. I tried to get in there. I could hear someone," he said.

He said there was fuel spilling from the plane.

Maureen Ulevich, who was walking her dog, heard a loud bang and looked up to see a plane.

"It looked to me like the left wing had fire and smoke. It was sort of spiraling down toward the ground, not nose down but sort of flat," she said. "It looked as if there was fire in the engine."

David Finn, 38, said one of the planes crashed into a house near his. He said he went inside to investigate and saw a large piece of debris that looked the tail.

Finn said he had just left the house when it exploded, injuring people around him. "The were shocked and they started to run," he said.
 
I fly out of Centenial... I don't *think* anyone I know was flying this evening.

These things really really make aviation suck.
 
DEN midair

Of course the local DEN city councilwoman indicated on TV that she had been working for several months with US congresswoman Diana Digette (sp?) D-Co to pass legislation to prevent small planes from flying so low over her neighborhood.

That is just what we need now. TFRs by neighborhoods!!!
 
MORON

Heard her on the radio at about 6pm local last night. She is such an idiot. 'nuff said about that.
 
Not to be an A$$ about this, and with complete respect for the dead, but.....

I am curious what it is that causes to mourn the loss of and euligize the guy flying UPS packages, but only casually if it all does the loss of the guy driving UPS packages catch our attention. And, as will be the case in this accident, we allready have someone agonizing over this mid-air collision and how it just makes aviation "suck" and yet no mention of the people that died yesterday in the mid-road collision.

I look forward to the day when aviation accidents receive no more publicity than do automobile accidents. It won't mean that the pain for those involved will be any less, it just means that aviation will finally become an accepted every day mode of transportation much like the automobile 60- 80 years ago.

That being said, Godspeed fellow aviators and get the place ready for the rest of us as we will all one day follow.....
 
Aviation accidents v. auto accidents

I agree. I believe the problem is that most everyone understands cars because they drive but to the average person aeronautics is an esoteric black art practiced by magicians.

Some of the misinformed news reporting also does not help, although the Channel 9 weatherman did a decent job of explaining VFR flyways.

Another problem is that aviation accidents almost always yield highly watchable video and dozens of emergency vehicles responding to the scene. A serious automobile collision only annoys other motorists on the road. Never mind that the automobile collisions can cause serious injuries, permanent injury or death.

I'm glad that I don't live in that city councilwoman's district.
 
What sucks is the 172 came from the FBO I rent from. It's just like saying it sucks when your dad gets killed in a car crash. No difference.

I don't make a big deals out of car crashes because I don't know anyone who has died in one.

So it's probably someone who I've seen at the airport every now and then, and could be a co-worker I see every day. I won't know until Monday.
 
Didn't two instructors from the same FBO crash into the side of a mountain within the last 12 months too? Bad run of luck!
 
After watching Denver's local news for an evening, I'm done. The television coverage has been simply nauseating. A montage of a dozen 911 tapes, played end-to-end? A narrative of events, set to dramatic music? "We'll tell you who died; tonight at 10" They actually said that, verbatim! It sickens me to see the talking heads try to turn what was simply a terrible accident into something worthy of the movie theatre. I noticed they pinned the tearful grandparents down at the airport for an interview. Completely tactless. Particularly revolting was the vignette on one woman's hapless Subaru which was struck by a wing. We are supposed to feel sorry for her, even contribute to a fund for damaged property! Five familes lost their sons, fathers, husbands and brothers, and we are to mourn for the wench's Subaru?!?!

It was a midair. The aircraft ran into each other, which, sadly, happens sometimes. Thats it. The only details that will ever come out of this accident will be of interest only to the aviation community. Therefore it would be appreciated if these media types just shut up. Give us the facts, we will supply the grief.
 
Interesting Point

Joseph, et al.
That raises an interesting point. I remember reading in AOPA about 3-4 months ago, one of the columnists was contemplating how aviators have convinced themselves that flying is statistically less dangerous than the car ride to the airport. (I also have come to believe that this is the case, not because I've done any studies, but because I've heard it so often from Phil and the gang. It makes it easier to justify going for a $100 breakfast) When the columnist did an informal survey of numerous pilots at airports, he asked them if they personally knew anyone killed in a plane. They almost all did. And he also asked them if they knew anyone that had been killed in a car crash. Most of them just scratched their heads.....
--How true is that to anyone of us?--
I think he was trying to suggest that we should recognize and respect that there are real dangers in what we do.

My wife used to work in the trauma dept. at a hospital. The amount of car wreck patients was consistently high, most non-fatal, but usually pretty bad. (Remember she only saw the trauma patients). But she gets scared when I fly, because she says every once in a while, they'd get a plane wreck patient, but they have never brought in a live one. It seems to me that plane wrecks either produce fireballs and fatalities, or just bent planes.

I'm thankful that 90% of our CAP missions are false alarms.
 
Someone at my local flying club here in Denver told me that the Mayor (of Denver) wants both Jeffco and Centennial to be upgraded to Class Charlie airspace (apparently this is from one of the news feeds). The Mayor is apparently away on a conference in DC right now. Both are currently Class Delta, and abut the floor of the Denver Class Bravo overhead.

My better half always worries when I'm up, and this really freaked her out last night, especially the 172 which I fly. I cancelled today's planned flight to let her calm down somewhat. The controllers at Jeffco were recommending hand-offs to Flight Following today (VFR traffic obviously).

Bruce.
 
20 y/old kid that died in this crash was

a Columbine survivor....

Fate sux...

Columbine pupil dies in Colo. plane crash
By Colleen Long
Associated Press Writer

January 26, 2003, 9:48 AM EST

DENVER -- One of the victims in the deadly crash of two small planes over Denver had been a student at Columbine High School in 1999, when two classmates carried out the nation's worst school massacre.

Jonathan Ross Ladd had been a junior at the time, but he had since taken flight lessons and developed a love of flying, his grandmother said.

On Friday, she said, he was piloting a single-engine Cessna bound for Cheyenne, Wyo., with two friends aboard when the plane collided with a twin-engine Piper and both plummeted into a residential neighborhood. All five people aboard the two planes died.

"Flying is, was, his passion. It was his life, and we have to accept that," Ladd's grandmother, Connie Hull of Seattle, told KWGN-TV in Denver.

The Denver coroner identified the crash victims as Fred Greg White, 51, of Westminster; Leo Larson, 57, of Northglenn; Isaac Louis Murrow, 22, of Granby; and Curtis Paul Maxey, 22, and Ladd, 20, both of Littleton.

Brian Kilburn, director of operations at Key Lime Flight, said Ladd had received flight training and rented aircraft from the company before.

He was "basically a very thorough, very conscientious pilot," Kilburn said in Sunday's editions of The Denver Post.

Larson, identified as the owner of the other plane, was a certified commercial pilot and flight instructor, the Post and Rocky Mountain News reported.

Neither pilot had filed a flight plan, which was not required. However, both had been in contact with air traffic control, National Transportation Safety Board investigator Arnold Scott said.

Aviation officials said the Cessna 172 Skyhawk had taken off from Centennial Airport in suburban southeast Denver. The other plane, a twin-engine Piper Cheyenne II, had left Jefferson County Airport, northwest of Denver, bound for Centennial.

After the crash, the Cessna just missed a senior citizens' apartment building before slamming into a house and causing an explosion. The cabin of the Piper ended up in a yard a few feet from the home's back door. Six people on the ground a firefighter were injured.

Investigators had recovered most of the debris from the planes Saturday. They planned to review radar and voice recordings and interview air traffic controllers at Denver International Airport to determine why the planes collided.

"I talked to one witness today who said he looked up and saw the airplanes come together, and he said at the very last second he saw the Cheyenne make a steep or sharp bank to the left," Scott said. "Whether that's true or not, I don't know."

Denver Mayor Wellington Webb also planned to meet with Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta to discuss whether tighter flight restrictions should be enforced in the area, said mayoral spokesman Andrew Hudson.

According to residents of the area, about a half mile from the Denver Broncos' football stadium, there was another collision in same area in 1974 that sent two other planes to the ground, killing four people.
Copyright © 2003, The Associated Press
 
Cardinal said:
After watching Denver's local news for an evening, I'm done. The television coverage has been simply nauseating. A montage of a dozen 911 tapes, played end-to-end? A narrative of events, set to dramatic music? "We'll tell you who died; tonight at 10" They actually said that, verbatim! It sickens me to see the talking heads try to turn what was simply a terrible accident into something worthy of the movie theatre. I noticed they pinned the tearful grandparents down at the airport for an interview. Completely tactless. Particularly revolting was the vignette on one woman's hapless Subaru which was struck by a wing. We are supposed to feel sorry for her, even contribute to a fund for damaged property! Five familes lost their sons, fathers, husbands and brothers, and we are to mourn for the wench's Subaru?!?!

It was a midair. The aircraft ran into each other, which, sadly, happens sometimes. Thats it. The only details that will ever come out of this accident will be of interest only to the aviation community. Therefore it would be appreciated if these media types just shut up. Give us the facts, we will supply the grief.

Not that it will do any good, but you ought to send those comments TO the "news" station in question. Very well said.
 
Accident?Collisions are negligent acts.

An accident would be hitting/injesting waterfowl at night. Two different metal objects, operated by humans and striking each other, is a negligent act. Not an accident. Cops don't call em accidents...they call em TC's. Traffic Collisions.

Never mind me, I'm just a little impacted.
 
Wright, the point you make is interesting. What you say strikes me as technically true but sletchy on a practical level. Colliding with another airplane is of course illegal, as the poor Baron pilot on this board discovered. Yet if a crew puts forward their best, earnest effort to see and avoid they can still manage to run into one another. These were both single pilot aircraft. It only takes one guy with his head down copying the ATIS to complete the "traffic collision" chain.

cjh, Thanks.
 
NTSB on the Denver midair.

The NTSB has released information regarding the FAA contact with the two aircraft.

The Cheyenne levelled out at 7,600', and contacted Denver Departures. (I'm not sure if this was an instrument launch or not, for such a short flight).

The Cessna 172 called the same controller at 7,500', and requested higher to 8,500' (the Denver Class Bravo floor here is 8,000', so assume this was "cleared to enter the Class Bravo).

Shortly after the controller contacted the Cheyenne, "say altitude" (7'600'). Immediately the controller issued a traffic alert that a Cessna was 1 mile on an opposite heading at the same altitude. The Cheyenne was observed entering a tight turn when the accident occured.

I've heard slight variations on this from the 3 networks, and all of them most likely have a very summarized version. My condolences to all concerned.

Bruce.
KBJC, Jeffco, CO.
 

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