Photo: Leigh Vogel/The Aspen Times/Associated Press
The pilot of a Challenger 600 that crashed in Aspen, Colo., on early Sunday afternoon aborted his first landing attempt due to a severe tailwind according to air traffic control exchanges obtained from LiveATC.net. The pilot managed to go missed but the aircraft crashed on the runway on the second attempt, killing at least one person on board and injuring two others, one seriously. The dead man has been identified asSergio Carranza Brabata, a Mexican resident whose hometown was not immediately known. The injured have not been identified. The aircraft was registered to the Bank of Utah Trustee but it’s not clear who was operating it.
The big business jet flipped and burned about 12:30 p.m., closing the airport and stranding dozens of private aircraft and a few airliners trying to depart on the last day of the Christmas school break. According to the tower recordings, controllers were polling the crews of flights arriving and departing about the wind conditions and most reported low-level windshear. The FAA and NTSB are on the way to investigate.
This story was corrected to identify a tailwind as the reason for the pilot’s go-around rather than windshear.
