Passenger crash-lands plane after pilot suffers heart attack

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Passenger crash-lands plane after pilot suffers heart attack

By J.M. KALIL
REVIEW-JOURNAL
A man whose only flight instruction was glider lessons 25 years ago guided a
private plane to an emergency crash landing at North Las Vegas Airport on
Thursday after the pilot suffered a fatal heart attack.
Pilot Douglas Reichardt, 49, owner of the popular El Jefe's Mexican
Restaurant & Cantina in Henderson, died at University Medical Center
following the 9:14 a.m. crash of his twin-engine Gulfstream I.
The plane circled several times while attempting an approach, and the
passenger who took over its controls had at least one close call before
bringing it in, North Las Vegas Fire Department Capt. Jay Wittwer said.
"It was a little bit too low, and he almost hit some apartments to the
north," Wittwer said.
Landing gear lowered, the plane touched down about 100 feet short of the
runway. The crash broke all three wheels off the aircraft, which skidded to
a stop on its belly without catching fire.
"It was amazing," Wittwer said. "He missed buildings and was able to get the
plane back to home base and walk away."
The two passengers, whose names were not released, emerged from the plane on
their own with minor injuries, and firefighters pulled the pilot from the
aircraft. They were all taken to UMC, where the pilot died within hours,
hospital officials said.
Reichardt had filed a flight plan to San Diego before the plane took off
from North Las Vegas at 8:30 a.m., said Donn Walker, a spokesman for the
Federal Aviation Administration in Hawthorne, Calif.
Shortly afterward, Reichardt told air traffic control in Los Angeles that he
needed to return to North Las Vegas and was approved to do so, Walker said.
In the plane's next communication, a passenger informed air traffic control
at McCarran International Airport that Reichardt was incapacitated.
"He was given directions to orient the plane back to North Las Vegas and
told he could land on any of the three runways," Walker said.
After the crash landing, the passenger who guided the plane to the ground
told officials at the airport his only previous experience controlling an
aircraft involved a few lessons piloting gliders in the late 1970s.
Wittwer said the two passengers were Southern Nevada residents who appeared
to be in their 50s.
Employees at El Jefe's declined to comment.