The pilot of a small, twin-engine cargo plane died in a crash about 10 feet from a home after telling air traffic controllers that he lost engine power Tuesday morning near Centennial Airport.
The Centennial-based Key Lime Air Cessna 404 was empty and traveling to Denver International Airport to pick up cargo when it crashed, shortly after takeoff, in the home’s front yard.
The airplane crashed in a bank angle with its nose low, cartwheeling before it came to rest, according to an investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board.
The pilot was identified as Daniel Steitz, a retired Aurora police detective sergeant who was with the department from 1987 to 2011. He was 55.
“It is with sincere sorrow that we have confirmed a Key Lime Air aircraft, a Cessna 404 has been involved in an accident,” Cliff Honeycutt, president of Key Lime Air, said in a statement.
Honeycutt said the company is participating in the investigation into the crash. The investigation could take between eight and 10 months, said Jennifer Rodi, a senior air safety investigator with the NTSB.
Key Lime Air is a cargo and passenger air charter service with a fleet of more than 30 aircraft, including jets.
The plane went down about 4:50 a.m. in the 6600 block of South Billings Way near Arapahoe Road, roughly 1½ miles from the airport.
A photo from the scene showed mangled, smoldering wreckage.
“The plane went down just feet from several houses,” said Becky O’Guinn, a spokeswoman for South Metro Fire Rescue.
O’Guinn said the aircraft was engulfed in flames when crews arrived. Firefighters extinguished the blaze after about 10 minutes.
“I heard a plane go by really low, and I held my breath,” said Julie Pfannenstein, who lives just houses away from where the plane went down. “We live by the airport, and planes go by all the time. But this one was low.”
Pfannenstein, who woke up to the sound of the plane overhead, said she thought the plane was going to hit her house and that she let out a sigh of relief when it passed over.
Video from the scene showed people on their cellphones circling the burning wreckage.
Flight-tracking site FlightAware.com showed that a Cessna 404 departed from Centennial Airport at 4:27 a.m. The site shows the aircraft dropping from radar near the crash site.
Jesse Paul: 303-954-1733, jpaul@denverpost.com or twitter.com/jesseapaul
