Riverside Fire Battalion Chief Mike Esparza said witnesses thought the single-engine 1963 Mooney M20C started having trouble soon after take off. One of those witnesses told The Press-Enterprise that he saw the plane coming straight toward him; it barely cleared the power lines, veered away from houses then nose-dived into the residential neighborhood street, located about a quarter-mile from the airport. Esparza said the fire department was called about 10 pm but when they arrived the plane was engulfed in flames.
Uncovering the cause of the crash may take six months to a year, says the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), although preliminary investigation in underway.
Riverside Airport is a fast-growing facility but with limited room for expansion. In a report prepared by Riverside County Airport Land Use Commission three years ago, traffic is forecasted to leap to 160,000 operations in 2025, up from 110,000 in 2002, with an ultimate goal of 220,000. It serves single-engine, twin-engine turboprops, business jets and helicopters.Hemmed in on its east and south sides by heavy urbanization, the inevitable was bound to eventually happen. When the February 27th flight crashed, it ended up just 20 feet from homes, incinerating palm trees and the front of a car.
One woman who lives on that impacted street told the Press-Enterprise, "It's amazing how low they fly," she said. "This is the first time I've seen something like this happen in 30 years of living here."
That may be due to the fact that Riverside is one of few municipal airports in the region busy enough to warrant a federally controlled flight tower. Unfortunately, the tower had closed two hours before the fated flight took off. While the tower makes Riverside Airport one of the safest in the area, the lack of lighting on the longer of its two runways when the tower closes, forced the aircraft to use the short runway, which, according to a local veteran pilot, could have affected the flight's take-off.
Retired federal crash investigator Chuck Leonard adds, "A control tower isn't a magic bullet. There is little that air traffic controllers can do to help pilots facing mechanical malfunctions and many other types of in-flight emergencies."
Rusty pilots make mistakes, is Leonard's theory. He estimates a good number of the pilots fly only 40 to 50 hours a year, compared to the 100 for the typical private pilot, averaging out to 75 hours a month.
In total 13 people have been killed in Riverside and San Bernardino Country plane crashes this year.
On February 26, single-engine Lancair IV-P lost power while in final approach and crashed in a canyon near French Valley Airport near Murrieta. The pilot reported to an NTSB investigator that this was his first big trip in the airplane and he was taking friends and family for short trips around the area. A seven-year old girl was among the four friends and family injured.
A twin-engine Cessna 340A was destroyed when it crashed near the peak of a 4,800-foot ridge in Millard Canyon on February 2, killing all four passengers on a personal cross-country flight.
One lucky pilot walked away from a damaged single-engine Smith Zodiac 601XL after the engine lost power during take-off from French Valley Airport on February 1.
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And at first of the year, there were no witnesses on January 10 when a Corsario MK-4 amateur-built amphibian airplane, heading out of Corona Municipal Airport, crashed into a hillside near Canyon Lake, taking the pilot's life.
So far, in 2008, there have been 110 plane crashes involving small aircraft across the country, as reported by National Transportation Safety Board.