Arvada neighborhood shaken after small plane crashes in front yard of Colorado home
On Friday morning, the pilot of a single-engine Beechcraft 35 with four people on board called air traffic control, warning of issues with the aircraft, just moments before crashing into the front yard of a home in Arvada. All four people on board, two adults and two juveniles, were rushed to the hospital.
Pilot: I'm losing power quickly. I might have to put it down somewhere near Standley.
Air Traffic Control: Let me know if there's anything I can do.
Pilot: Ahhh, I don't know what to do. I'm gonna have to put it down in a field somewhere.
Wreckage from the crash was sprawled on the front yard and the driveway of an Arvada home was still smoldering hours later. Those who rushed to help struggled with what they saw.
"It started getting lower so I started following, expecting an impact. That's when it hit and then went into flames when it got close to the truck and it all just burst into flames," witness Erick Garcia said.
Anne, who asked CBS News Colorado not to use her last name, has a home that backs up to the scene. She was out watering her plants about 9:30 a.m. and said she heard the plane before she saw it.
"It sounded like a motorcycle... a strange-sounding motorcycle. I saw the plane hit the tree, it clipped the tree came hit the ground... slid," she said.
The tree that was clipped belongs to 90-year-old Dee Williams who has called the area home for more than 60 years. Along with the broken branches littering her yard, she found pieces of that plane.
"I was so shaky about that because that's too close," Williams said.
Noah Taht arrived on the scene shortly after the crash, a flight instructor at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport. He was flying in the same area when the trouble started.
"I was in the air and I was flying back to the airport. I was about to land when I heard him talking," said Taht.
He heard the pilot declare an emergency over the radio, "He initially came on saying he was having some oil pressure issues."
A trail of plane debris that stretched down Oberon road is like pieces of a puzzle that investigators will put together to help everyone understand exactly what went wrong.
"You don't expect it... it's something we don't want to expect every day," Garcia said.
