All five aboard small plane killed in crash at Colorado airport

[September 02, 2014]  By Keith Coffman
 
 DENVER (Reuters) - All five people aboard a single-engine airplane died after it crashed on Sunday in a field beside a runway during an attempt to land at a northern Colorado airport, authorities said.

Peter Knudson, spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board, said the Piper PA-46 aircraft went down shortly before noon near the Erie Municipal Airport, about 25 miles (40 km) northwest of Denver.

Knudson said the plane took off from Centennial Airport, south of Denver, with five people aboard, and was landing in clear weather at the Erie airport when it crashed.

Emergency crews found three people dead inside the wreckage of the six-seat airplane when they arrived at the scene, said Roger Rademacher, assistant fire chief with Mountain View Fire Rescue.

Two crash survivors were taken to hospital but died later, Rademacher said. One had been moved by ground ambulance to a nearby hospital and the other airlifted to a Denver hospital.

The names of the dead have not been released.

Knudson said investigators with the NTSB and the Federal Aviation Administration were at the site of the crash to try to determine its cause.

(Editing by Barbara Goldberg and Sandra Maler; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

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