The plane crashed near Eldorado Boulevard and Interlocken Loop in Broomfield, according to North Metro Fire Rescue.
Author: Jennifer Campbell-Hicks
BROOMFIELD, Colo. — One person died in a small, single-engine plane crash Wednesday afternoon in Broomfield, according to North Metro Fire Rescue (NMFR).
The crash was reported to 911 at 12:34 p.m. at the intersection of Eldorado Boulevard and Interlocken Loop, NMFR said. The location is northwest of Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport and near Omni Interlocken Golf Club.
The Cessna 172 was on its way to Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport when it went down. The crash caused a fire that consumed most of the wreckage, the National Transportation Safety Board said. The NTSB and the Federal Aviation Administration are investigating the cause.
“We are doing our onsite documentation of the wreckage signatures and then later this evening a recovery company will be here on site to recover the wreckage,” NTSB Air Safety Investigator Mike Hodges said Wednesday. “Whereas, at a later date, the NTSB will be doing a more detailed layout of the air frame and examination of the engine. Right now, we’re still trying to confirm identities and the background, and one thing we’ll look at during the course of the investigation is the training of the pilot, the records and so on.”
NMFR confirmed the only person on board died in the crash. Their identity will be released by the coroner’s office.
Golfers nearby saw the plane crash and called 911.
“My friend Brett and I were on the practice green about to tee off, and in my peripheral vision I just saw an object at a really sharp angle going toward the ground, and I looked up and it was a white little plane and it was like sideways with one wing basically perpendicular to the ground,” Jeff Stone said. “Next thing I know, there was just a big ball of flame. There was about a five to six second pause, and then there was an even bigger ball of flame right after that, and then we heard sirens and called 911 and that was it. It happened really fast.”
Another man who heard about the crash came to the scene to see what happened. Nathan Finneman is a pilot and said seeing a crash like this never gets easier.
“This has been the weirdest weathered year for aviation in my opinion, especially coming out of this airport, because we’re so close to the foothills. A lot of that wind rotates on a westerly flow to the east and it just rotates and it causes all this turbulence, and today was one of those days. I’m kind of happy to be on the ground and not in the air,” Finneman said. “As hard as that aircraft hit, my guess is that he hit a rather high rate of speed, so something happened for it to hit as hard as it did, and it’s tough to see.”
