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Five die by Plane Crash near Texas
apartment Complex
Pakistan
Times
Monitoring Report
SAN ANTONIO (Texas, US):
Five people were killed when a small airplane crashed in bad weather near an
apartment complex for seniors, authorities said. There were no survivors
aboard the plane.
The victims included the pilot and a pair of fathers traveling with their
sons, said John Clabes, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration.
The aircraft was trying to make an instrument landing in rainy conditions
with poor visibility.
The Piper Navajo owned by Dash Air Charter Inc. of San Antonio was on
approach to San Antonio International Airport Sunday afternoon, said Clabes.
The pilot had filed a flight plan in Dodge City, Kan., Clabes said.
The pilot was off course on his approach and was swinging around to try
again when the plane crashed. "He pulled out of the approach and disappeared
off our radar," Clabes said.
Thickly Populated Site
The crash site is in a thickly populated residential and commercial area
about six miles northwest of downtown San Antonio.
The plane, which can seat as many as eight people, crashed about three miles
from the airport and just off a busy city street.
"It looks like it clipped a tree, clipped the apartment and went into the
ground," said Joe Rios, a spokesman for San Antonio police. He said there
was a small explosion after the crash.
Rios part of the 34-foot-long (10.4 meter-long) plane was buried in the
ground at the housing complex. One wing disintegrated on impact, he said,
while the other was embedded in the wall of an apartment. A woman was in
that apartment at the time, but she was not hurt.
David Herrmann, vice president of the company that owns the plane, told the
San Antonio Express-News that the group was returning from a pheasant
hunting trip in Kansas.
The Probe
Officials with the National Transportation Safety Board were scheduled to
arrive Monday to investigate.
No one on the ground was hit by the wreckage, although "good-sized pieces"
of the plane were on the floor of the woman's apartment, District Fire Chief
Randy Jenkins said.●
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