CRANDALL, Texas — A former Crandall, Texas, man was killed in a plane crash after experiencing mechanical issues and crash landing in a field in Archuleta County, Colorado.
CRANDALL, Texas — A former Crandall, Texas, man was killed in a plane crash after experiencing mechanical issues and crash landing in a field in Archuleta County, Colorado.
70-year-old Robert “Bobby” Bennett, formerly of Crandall, Texas, and 53-year-old Svitlana Solodovnyk of Ukraine, were in the plane when it began experiencing mechanical problems, crash landed, and engulfed in flames, according to the Archuleta County Sheriff’s Office.
Bennett and Solodovnyk were in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, for the 2015 Pagosa Springs Air Race, which was to be held on September 26, 2015. The two were familiarizing themselves with the course the day before the race on September 25, 2015, at the time of the crash.
“Mr. Bennett was flying a 1964 S35 Bonanza when he began experiencing mechanical problems in between course 1 and 2,” the Archuleta County Sherrif’s Office told inForney.com in a press statement. “A close friend of Mr. Bennett’s, and race participant, was flying ahead of him in his own plane when Bennett radioed him to tell him he had lost an engine and was going down.”
“Witnesses on the ground reported that there was white smoke coming from the airplane just prior to the crash and that he was banking hard to the left to turn around, possibly in an attempt to land on a nearby gravel road,” the statement continued.
On Saturday, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) spokesperson Allen Kenitzer, speaking to inForney.com, confirmed the crash seven miles south of Pagosa Springs off Highway 84 between mile marker 21 and 22.
The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board are conducting their own independent investigations into the crash. The wrecked plane was transported to a facility in northern Colorado for further investigation.
Autopsies were performed on Wednesday, September 30, 2015, by a forensic pathologist in Durango, Colorado, who determined the cause of death for both individuals as accidental. The sheriff’s office released the victim’s identities on Wednesday night.
