Aspen-Bound Plane From Burbank, LAX Crashes; 18 Die

A chartered jet out of Burbank and Los Angeles airports slammed into a hillside in snowy weather near Aspen, Colo., Thursday evening, killing all 18 people on board.

Breaking into pieces, the plane hurtled over a culvert before smashing into a bluff just short of the runway at Aspen-Pitkin County Airport, authorities said.

Rescuers arrived within minutes as local residents climbed over fences and tried to find survivors in a field, but were turned back by spilled fuel and flaming wreckage.

The plane was owned by a firm headed by movie producer Andrew G. Vajna, who made such films as the “Rambo” trilogy, “Die Hard With a Vengeance” and “Total Recall.” He was not aboard. Identities of the 15 passengers and three crew members weren’t released.

The Gulfstream III twin turbojet had left Burbank Airport at 2:33 p.m. and flown to Los Angeles International Airport, where it left for Aspen at 4:16 p.m., said Bruce Nelson, a Federal Aviation Administration operations officer.

There were no distress calls before the plane slammed into the hill near Snowmass Village, about 500 yards west of the Aspen airport, losing its tail, said Marie Munday, a spokeswoman for the Pitkin County Sheriff’s Department.

Madeleine Osberger, 40, of Aspen, said she saw the plane just before it crashed. Later, she saw the wrecksage.

“It was very, very close to the airport. He just missed the runway. He just missed the highway,” Osberger said. “Thank God he missed the highway.”

It wasn’t snowing at the time, but it had been snowing before the crash and resumed soon afterward, she added.

“The weather moved so fast; maybe the pilot didn’t know what hit him.” she said.

Al Kassa, who had been traveling on Highway 82, a main artery in Colorado’s Roaring Fork Valley, told KCNC-TV the plane passed over his car at a height of about 50 feet and then crashed.

“The noise was just so loud,” he said. “And then I just saw it going straight into the ground at about a 30-degree angle, and then it just blew up. I’ve been in a state of shock for the last few hours.

Wreckage was scattered across a 100-yard area on the highway and on the hillsides, authorities said. Three bodies were found on the road, and another on the hillside. Two passengers were still strapped to their seats in the plane, authorities said.

“The jet was attempting to perform an instrument landing,” Munday said. “We have located 18 bodies, which were the total number aboard, according to the manifest.”

Private pilot Tim Jackson told MSNBC that he was about 1 1/2 miles from the airport when he saw “live fire” along the shoulder of the road and rushed to the scene to see “if there was anything I could do.”

“It was a gruesome sight, obviously,” Jackson said.

An Aspen firefighter reportedly broke into tears when she arrived at the site.

The crash occurred as the town was hosting several film and music festivals.

The 1981 aircraft, which was designed to carry up to 21 passengers and typically ferried celebrities and dignitaries, is maintained and operated by Avjet Corp. in Burbank.

According to the FAA, the plane is owned by Airborne Charter Inc., based in Santa Monica, and that company’s president is Vajna, the founder of Cinergi Pictures Entertainment Inc.

Avjet President Marc Foulkrod confirmed that Vajna was not abord.

Foulkrod said the company had sent employees to Aspen to help National Transportation Safety Board investigators. Thirteen NTSB investigators are expected to arrive at the scene early this morning, the sheriff’s office said.

“Our deepest and most heartfelt concern goes out to all of the families,” Foulkrod said.

The Avjet hotline for crash information is (818) 841-6190.

On the plane, he added, was Avjet’s senior captain, whom he described as an experienced pilot.

Witnesses reported blowing snow and mist in the Aspen area Thursday night.

Matthew Allee, an employee of a small market near the crash site, said: “I saw smoke in the distance, and then 12 ambulances, firetrucks and police cars. And, man, the snow was coming down.”

Kat Parkin, an Aspen resident, told CNN that the crash occurred a few hundred yards from the airport. A large number of emergency personnel in yellow and orange suits could be seen on a hillside.

Controlling the environment at the airport, in the air and on the ground, has been a controversial issue in Colorado for years.

The federal government’s General Accounting Office concluded that significant safety issues are associated with the airport. Fourteen general aviation accidents occurred between October 1982 and September 1992 within 15 miles of the airport.

Four people, including a United Airlines pilot and his wife, were killed in the crash of a small, vintage Cessna aircraft northwest of the airport last July.

In October 1998, Academy Award-winning actress Sally Field and her family escaped unhurt when their private plane aborted takeoff and smashed into two parked planes at the Aspen airport.

A United Express commuter jet slid off the end of a runway at the airport in March 1998, but no one was injured.

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Aspen Plane Crash

A chartered Gulfstream III that took off from Burbank and picked up passengers at LAX crashed near Aspen, killing all 18 on board.

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Gulfstream III

Length: 83 ft., 1 in.

Wingspan: 77 ft., 10 in.

Range: 4,200 miles

In production: 1979-1986

Main uses: Business and private charter

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Times staff writers Annette Kondo, Massie Ritsch, Jeffrey Rabin, Jean Merl and Martha L. Willman contributed to this report.