Four people are dead after a light aircraft crashed near the Saltillo Airport in Coahuila on Friday.
A Piper PA-46 plane with four people on board came down just 200 meters short of a runway at the airport — officially the Plan de Guadalupe International Airport — at around midday after taking off from Matamoros, Tamaulipas, some 40 minutes earlier, according to Coahuila authorities and media reports.
Just before the crash, the pilot, identified as Antonio Ávila, reported that the aircraft had run out of fuel, the Milenio newspaper reported.
The other three victims were Adriana Garza Ibarra, Rosario Garza Ibarra and Hilda Garza Ibarra, according to the newspaper El Heraldo de Saltillo.
Milenio reported that Adriana Garza Ibarra was a crew member and that the other two women were from the United States, but El Heraldo said that all three were passengers. Their surnames suggest they were sisters.
El Heraldo reported that the single-engine aircraft first departed Brownsville, Texas, before stopping off in Matamoros. The two cities are located on opposite sides of the Mexico-U.S. border.
El Heraldo also said that strong winds may have been a factor in the crash, which occurred in the Blanca Esthela neighborhood of Ramos Arizpe, a municipality in the metropolitan area of Saltillo where the airport is located.
According to Milenio, the single-engine aircraft — made by the Florida-based manufacturer Piper Aircraft — was owned by a company based in Toluca, México state.
With reports from El Universal, Milenio and El Heraldo de Saltillo
Looks to me like pilot error:running out of gas!
will I never get another free article? dave
Another preventable general aviation accident that resulted in fatalities. The complexities of flying even a simple aircraft require that the pilot know the aircraft, understand the weather conditions, the loading of the plane (total weight), the list goes on. It’s usually not one mistake that creates the mishap but a compounding of errors that results in a crash. My condolences to the families who lives are changed forever.