A small plane crashed south of Centennial Airport onto a golf course today, injuring the pilot.
No one on the ground was injured.
The single-engine plane crash-landed around 2:20 this afternoon after the pilot reported engine trouble, said Becky O’Guin, a spokeswoman for the Parker Fire Department.
Meridian Golf Club general manager Jim Shoemaker said the plane came to rest in a field between the golf course’s second and fourth holes. The golf course is southeast of the Interstate 25 and C-470 interchange.
Douglas County Sheriff’s spokeswoman Cocha Heyden said the pilot, the only person on board the plane, was reported to be injured but conscious and breathing. O’Guin said the pilot was able to get out of the plane before rescue crews arrived.
Shoemaker said club members on the golf course saw the plane go down.
“One of our members ran and helped get the pilot out of the plane,” Shoemaker said.
There was no smoke or fire associated with the crash, but O’Guin said crews are working to clean up a small fuel leak. The plane suffered moderate damage.
“The front end is pretty banged up,” she said.
The name of the pilot, who authorities said was in his late 70s, name was not released.
According to Federal Aviation Administration records, the plane, a 52-year-old Cessna 180, is registered to a Littleton man.
National Transportation Safety Board records reveal the plane was involved in another accident in 1993, when the pilot lost control in gusting winds during takeoff at an airport in Watkins. No one was injured in that incident, according to the report, and it is unclear whether the same pilot was at the controls today.
O’Guin said the Cessna took off earlier today from Centennial Airport and was returning when it crashed south of the runway. Shoemaker said that despite the golf course’s proximity to Centennial Airport, an event like this is a first for the club.
“There have been plane accidents close to the golf course, but never like this, never directly on the property,” he said.
Centennial Airport is the third-busiest general aviation airport in the country. It also has experienced among the most crashes at or near the airport of any airport in the country in the last 15 years.
Staff writer John Ingold can be reached at 720-929-0898 or jingold@denverpost.com.
