Jan. 7, 2005 12:00
AM
Small plane
crash kills Valley pilot, passenger
GILA RIVER
RESERVATION - A 44-year-old pilot who lived in the Stellar Airpark area of
Chandler and his passenger, a 35-year-old Queen Creek man, died when the small
single-engine plane in which they were flying crashed southeast of Sacaton.The
fixed-wing, experimental plane that John Edward Cox was flying took off from
Stellar Airpark and crashed about 5 p.m. Wednesday, killing Cox and Westley
Fredrick Riedl.
Witnesses said the plane was flying at an altitude of
several hundred feet when it began to spiral or spin before crashing to the
ground, Gila River Police Chief Ken Witkowski said.
The plane, a Lancair
235 that Cox owned, crashed about 500 to 600 feet from homes in the area of
Arizona 87 and Hashan Kehk Road, Witkowski said.
A Federal Aviation
Administration investigator and the National Transportation Safety Board will
begin examining the crash within the next several days.
Witkowski said
there was no fire or explosion at the scene, and there was a large amount of
fuel in the plane after the crash.
The last fatal plane crash on the Gila
River Reservation was in 1998, Witkowski said.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Did the plane have a header tank? The news article claims there was
a "large amount of fuel in the plane after the crash" (Maybe Dan
Rather reported the information).
The NTSB database does not have an entry for this crash yet. Was
this a 1990 Lancair 235, N64BV?
Scott Krueger
AKA Grayhawk
Lancair N92EX IO320 SB 89/96
Aurora, IL (KARR)
Fair
and Balanced Opinions at No Charge!
There is an oxymoron in that,
somewhere...