A twin-engine cargo plane that vanished from radar before dawn Thursday on approach to Centennial Airport crashed in rugged terrain, killing its pilot, rescue officials said.
Authorities believed only one person was on board, said Becky O’Guin, public information officer for the Parker Fire District.
The pilot’s name was not released.
Airport officials notified emergency crews after losing radar contact with the plane just after 2 a.m. as it was preparing to land. It disappeared from radar about one to two miles south of the airport.
A crew in a Denver police helicopter found the turboprop Mitsubishi MU-2B-60 east of Interstate 25 in a rural, rugged area in Douglas County at the crest of a hill in heavy rain, O’Guin said.
Except for the tail and one engine, the plane was “pretty much smashed to bits,” said Andy Lyon of South Metro Fire Rescue.
Heavy rain created muddy conditions that hampered efforts to locate the aircraft.
“The terrain itself is rugged – lots of gullies and shrub oak – but also it’s very wet and our air support has very low visibility,” O’Guin said.
The plane was registered to a Flight Line Inc., of Watkins.
There was no immediate word on the plane’s flight plans or what the plane may have been carrying.
A woman who answered Flight Line’s phone said the company would have no comment.
Another Mitsubishi MU-2B-60 operated by Flight Line crashed near Centennial Airport on Dec. 10, killing pilot Paul Krysiak, 28, of Aurora, and co-pilot James Presba, 25, of Lone Tree.
Including Thursday’s crash, that model of aircraft has been involved in 27 accidents in the past 25 years in the U.S., including 19 fatal crashes that killed a total of 55 people, according to National Transportation Safety Board records.
Five of the accidents were in Colorado. Three of those resulted in the deaths of nine people.
South Dakota Gov. George Mickelson and seven others were killed in April 1993 when their Mitsubishi MU-2B-60 crashed in Zwingle, Iowa.
