Weather Was Reportedly Stormy In Area Where Plane Went Down

An Extra EA-300 belonging to Sky Combat Ace went down Saturday near Las Vegas resulting in the fatal injury of the pilot and a passenger. Authorities are looking at the weather as a factor in the accident.

Sky Combat Ace is a tourism company that allows customers to fly high-performance aircraft with the assistance of an instructor. The Las Vegas Sun reports that the accident flight left Henderson Executive Airport at about 1600 local time and the accident was reported about an hour later. The plane went down near a dry lake bed, according to Megan Fazio of Vegas Extreme Adventures, the parent company of Sky Combat Ace.

The Las Vegas Review Journal reports that one of the two on board has been identified as Steven Peterson, 32, of Rohnert Park, California. The second person has not yet been identified.

According to the National Weather Service, about the time of the accident there were thunderstorms reported moving southwest from Boulder City. NWS meteorologist Caleb Steele told the paper that the plane "almost certainly" would have been in the vicinity of the storms at the time of the accident.

The NTSB has taken over the investigation. It is not known whether the instructor or the passenger was in control of the airplane when it went down. There was no distress call from the aircraft prior to the accident, according to the report.

(Image from file. Not accident airplane)

FMI: www.ntsb.gov