http://www.news9.com/story/36765263/pla ... s-one-dead

A friend from the area tells me it was an A36 Bonanza. Pilot had recently purchased the plane and was flying with a CFI to satisfy insurance requirements. The CFI was killed and the owner was taken to Oklahoma City with bad burns.

Too bad.

That area is pretty flat from what I have seen, so I would have thought they could have found a clearing. Hard to say, for sure.

I wonder what the cause was.

Alva is just down the road from me, you are correct about the flat country although we do have some canyons and rolling hills. The pilot was conscious when the emergency people arrived and had crawled from the burning wreckage. He said the cowling had somehow partially detached and covered the windshield, blinding their forward view. They were on short final and hooked a power line, going down in a gorge that is very close to the hospital (and the runway). He was airlifted to a burn center with 85% of his body burned.

Prayers for him and his family.

Those cowl doors on Bonanzas are huge.......ugly if one came loose, for sure. And burns over 85%.....ouch. Prayers for that gent. He’s got a long painful road ahead.

MTV

They are big and held down with 4 very strong fasteners. Also they are hinged longitudinally so even if it came open it would fare in the windstream and not cover the windscreen. And that would only affect one side.

Unless the front of the cowling somehow broke off.

I fly a Bonanza a lot; not sure how that could have happened.