DENVER—A small plane that crashed in Colorado in January plummeted 7,000 feet in less than a minute before slamming into the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, killing both people aboard, an investigator said Tuesday.
The plane was en route from the Phoenix area to Pueblo, Colo., when it crashed Jan. 9. The pilot, Dr. Michael O. Welton, 66, and his passenger, Roswitha Marold, 70, were killed. Both were from Waterloo, Iowa.
The National Transportation Safety Board hasn’t determined the probable cause of the crash, but NTSB investigator Jason Aguilera said in an interview that the plane’s rapid fall was more likely caused by the pilot losing control than by turbulence or wind currents.
Aguilera’s report on the facts of the crash, dated Monday, said conditions were conducive to ice forming on aircraft surfaces at the time, and that other pilots in the area reported moderate icing. Aguilera said he was unable to determine whether Welton’s plane had iced up.
Ice can add weight to a plane and change its handling.
The six-seat, single-engine Piper Malibu crashed about 110 miles southwest of Denver and 60 miles west of Pueblo.
The NTSB said the plane had been flying at about 25,000 feet when it quickly descended to 14,200 feet and then climbed back to 19,200 feet.
It then fell faster than 7,000 feet per minute to 12,200 feet, when radar contact was lost, the agency said.
A search team found the wreckage at 9,700 feet, some 2,500 feet below the last radar contact. Without radar readings, investigators don’t know the final rate of fall.
