Pilot dies after plane crashes in Las Vegas neighborhood

Mary Manning

Published Thu, Aug 28, 2008 (2:42 p.m.)

When Jill Pedrola, a health care administrator, glanced out her sixth-floor window at Cheyenne Avenue and Tenaya Way, she saw an airplane sailing by, the pilot fixed on the controls.

"It was so close and so low, you knew something was wrong," Pedrola told the Sun.

"It was so low it was at eye level from the sixth floor here," Pedrola said. "You could see it was struggling."

When Pedrola and other employees in the Sierra Health building rushed to the other side, they saw a plume of smoke and the flames shooting into the sky.

The plane, a twin-engine Piper Navajo, had crashed into the yard of an unoccupied home at 2828 N. Jones Blvd., killing the pilot, bursting into flames, catching two houses on fire and destroying a vehicle on the ground, said Tim Szymanski, spokesman for the Las Vegas Fire Department.

As the aircraft began to lose altitude, eyewitnesses described how its right wing -- with smoke pouring out of an engine -- clipped power lines and catapulted into the house's block wall and yard, where it exploded in a fireball.

 

link to full story: http://www.lasvegassun.com/...-vegas-home/?latest