Small plane crashes feet from home in Colo., killing pilot

CENTENNIAL, Colo — A man died Tuesday when the small plane he was piloting crashed near an airport south of Denver.

The plane, a twin-engine Cessna 404, was taking off at about 4:30 a.m. MT from Centennial Airport, according to South Metro Fire Rescue Authority officials. It crashed 10 feet from one house's front door about 1½ miles northeast of the runway, and firefighters doused a blaze that resulted.

The plane slid through at least one other yard before stopping in front of one home, said spokeswoman Becky O'Guin of South Metro Fire Rescue.

The pilot, Daniel Lee Steitz, 55, was the only occupant of the plane and was killed instantly, said National Transportation Safety Board officials, who are investigating the crash. He was an Aurora, Colo., police detective, and had been with the police department for 24 years before retiring in 2011.

No one else was injured, but the house nearest the crash had slight heat damage from the fire.

Jim Siffring, in whose yard the plane wreckage came to rest, said his family was asleep when he and his wife heard a huge crash outside their home. He said their room "lit up like daylight."

"Planes go over here all the time," Siffring said. "It's never really been a concern. (I) grabbed a couple of fire extinguishers we had in the house. We shot them both empty, and they didn't really make a dent."

On Dec. 8, a small private jet crashed in a neighborhood 20 miles north of the District of Columbia, killing all three people on the plane and a mother and two of her children in a house ignited by crash debris.

The Cessna 404 took off from Centennial Airport at 4:27 a.m. Tuesday heading toward Denver International Airport about 22 miles to the northeast, according to the flight-tracking site FlightAware. The plane was in the air for 5 minutes.

Snow is on the ground in the area but was not falling at the time, according to Weather Underground. Temperatures were about 3 degrees below zero; winds were calm.

The crash occurred about three hours before a 7:19 a.m. sunrise.

Shortly after the plane took off, its pilot reported a loss of engine power to air-traffic control. NTSB investigator Jennifer Rodi said cold weather can affect engine performance and determining whether the engine had been preheated before its flight will be an important part of the probe.

The investigation is likely to take eight to 10 months.

The Cessna was a cargo plane operated by Centennial-based Key Lime Air, which conducts charter flights and package service, company President Cliff Honeycuff said in a statement. It was flying empty to Denver International for future use.

"Our focus at this time is on supporting the family of the pilot," he said.

Centennial Airport, owned by Arapaho County, caters to small planes and business jets and opened in 1968 to serve the nearby Denver Technological Center, according to the airport's website.

Contributing: Noel Brennan, KUSA-TV, Denver; The Associated Press