Air-safety investigators plan to test the engine of a Beechcraft Bonanza that crashed in an East Arapahoe Road parking lot Tuesday evening just short of a Centennial Airport runway.
The plane, piloted by William Disser, 76, of Saratoga, Calif., clipped a light pole and damaged three vehicles in the lot, but Disser escaped with minor injuries.
“He did have engine failure; the engine did quit,” said Aaron Sauer, an investigator in the National Transportation Safety Board’s Denver office.
The mishap was near East Arapahoe Road and South Lima Street.
The plane had adequate fuel in its wing tanks, Sauer said.
The pilot was flying from San Jose, Calif., to Colorado Springs but diverted to Centennial because of bad weather in the Springs area, officials said.
There have been a number of air accidents near Centennial in recent years, but Robert Olislagers, the airport’s executive director, said a review shows Centennial’s accident rate “is just about average” with other high- volume general-aviation airports.
“We’re just a very busy airport,” he said.
On Tuesday, the NTSB said the probable cause of a fatal aircraft accident that occurred 2.6 miles south of Centennial in August 2005 was “the pilot’s failure to properly execute the published instrument approach procedure, which resulted in controlled flight into terrain.”
The Cessna 425 was piloted by Littleton businessman Steve Gavit, and the crash killed him and three passengers.
Gavit, 62, was flying on instruments to Centennial on the night of Aug. 13 in rainy weather when the plane crashed in hilly terrain at an elevation of 6,120 feet.
About a minute before the crash, an air traffic controller gave Gavit a “low altitude alert,” to which the pilot responded, “Yeah, I am a bit low here,” according to the NTSB.
Twenty seconds later, Gavit reported, “I’m back on glide slope,” referring to an automated signal from the instrument landing system. About a half-minute later, the plane hit the hill.
“The pilot did not hold a valid medical certificate at the time of the accident, and post-accident toxicological tests revealed the presence of unreported prescription medications” in his system, the NTSB said.The safety agency said pilot acquaintances of Gavit’s told investigators a night flight under instrument conditions “would not be (Gavit’s) first choice if he had an option.”
Staff writer Jeffrey Leib can be reached at 303-954-1645 or jleib@denverpost.com.
