McALLEN, Texas – A small plane with four people aboard crashed in rural south Texas on Monday after the pilot reported encountering turbulence that was making it difficult for him to maintain the plane’s altitude, authorities said.
The wreckage was found on a private ranch less than four miles northwest of Benavides in Duval County in an area with mesquite trees and mud, said Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Lynn Lunsford.
“Law enforcement officials reported that the crash was unsurvivable,” Lunsford said.
Texas Department of Public Safety spokesman Manuel Garza said he had no other details because the plane was still smoldering.
The twin-turboprop Beechcraft King Air vanished from FAA radar about 11:42 a.m. on Monday after the pilot reported that turbulence was making it difficult to maintain an altitude of 25,000 feet, Lunsford said. The plane was flying from Uvalde to Leesburg, Fla., when controllers at FAA’s Houston Center noticed it was losing altitude, he said.
A line of thunderstorms moved across south Texas on Monday ahead of a cold front, dropping heavy rain in areas.
The aircraft was found inverted with no forward movement. There was icing in the area from 9000ft. One theory is the tail iced up leading to a tail stall.
I thought they did something on the King Air. There’s paint and interior shop there as well. Didn’t a King Air 90 from Oregon crash down there this past year coming out of a paint shop?
