State police: Pilot reported engine problems before fatal crash

Jul. 18—The crash was so severe there was almost no evidence it had involved an airplane. All that could be seen was the shell of burned-out house and a large swath of black ash.

And yet, it could have been much worse.

The pilot of a twin-engine Cessna reported a left engine failure just before his plane crashed into a home south of Santa Fe Tuesday, killing the aircraft's lone occupant and engulfing the unoccupied residence in flames.

A state police spokesman said no one else was hurt in the crash. But only 30 minutes before the incident, the house on Agua de Oro had been occupied, family members said.

The incident, which occurred just after 9 a.m. south of the Downs at Santa Fe, was a frighteningly close call for the family who lived in the house.

Natalie Benavidez, whose daughter Miquella Benavidez lived in the double-wide mobile home with her two children, ages 9 and 12, said Tuesday her daughter left for work just 30 minutes prior to the crash.

"She has her phone turned off. She's not doing well," Natalie Benavidez said of her daughter, a consumer loan officer at a local bank.

In a phone interview from her car, Natalie Benavidez said Miquella's children were with her and her husband on vacation in Arizona.

"It was a blessing in disguise that we were all out of the house," Natalie Benavidez said as the family was traveling home Tuesday.

Natalie Benavidez said her adult son was petsitting at their house about 500 feet away on the same property and looked out the window when he heard an explosion and saw his sister's home engulfed in flames. He could not immediately discern it was a plane that had hit the building, she said.

He immediately called his parents.

"All he could see were flames," Benavidez said. "As far as I could tell he thought it might have been a gas leak or something. He couldn't see a plane."

Benavidez said she and her husband had lived on the property for about 35 years and their daughter had moved into the house about four years ago. She said didn't notice planes from the Santa Fe airport flying low that often.

"It was just some sort of freak accident," she said.

Elaine Roybal, whose home on La Luna Road is less than a quarter mile from the crash site, said in a phone interview she was in her yard when the plane hit.

"I was outside watering and a plane passed above my head and it was puttering out like backfiring like it was dying out," she said. "I looked up at it, but I didn't think it was gonna crash because we never think things like that. I turned away and in a matter of 30 seconds it hit and it exploded."

Roybal said she called to her son Marcos Cervantes inside the house.

"I opened the front door and told him a plane just crashed and it's exploding," she said.

Cervantes, who was standing on La Luna Road road watching the emergency response said he and a neighbor drove toward the crash scene to see if they could help, but the home was already consumed by flames.

Roybal said she got on top of her roof and saw and heard multiple explosions, which she assumed might be a BBQ grill or propane tank on the property. Benavidez confirmed a vehicle was also destroyed in the fire.

"It was awful," Roybal said. "I was shaking. I stayed shaking till about 11 o'clock."

Another neighbor on La Luna Road, who declined to give her name, said she was leaving in her car Tuesday morning when she saw the smoke from the fire and called 911, around 9:05 a.m.

"I thought it was a body shop garage down the road," the woman said, adding she returned to her home thinking she better stay close in case the fire were to spread so she could wet down her property to protect it from the fire.

State police spokesman Wilson Silver said the plane went down 30 seconds to a minute after the pilot reported mechanical difficulties. The pilot's identity is being withheld pending next of kin, he said.

Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza said the aircraft took off from the Santa Fe Regional Airport at about 9:02 a.m. Dispatchers began receiving calls about a crash only a couple of minutes later.

The home on Agua de Oro, not far from the Interstate 25 frontage road, was engulfed in flames for a time. Aerial footage from Albuquerque TV station KOB showed about half of the dwelling in ashes, but no readily apparent shell of an aircraft following the fire.

A spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board wrote in an email an agency investigator was scheduled to respond to the scene either late Tuesday or Wednesday. An investigation can entail examining the aircraft, requesting any air traffic communications, radar data and weather reports, in addition to contacting any witnesses.

An investigator will request maintenance records of the aircraft, and medical records and flight history of the pilot, spokesman Keith Holloway wrote.

According to a news release from Santa Fe County, the plane refueled at Santa Fe Regional Airport before taking off again. Officials originally said the flight was headed to Santa Monica, Calif., then later reported it had originated in Sherman Oaks, Calif., before heading to Santa Fe.

Airport manager James Harris could not immediately be reached for comment Tuesday.