Pilot Killed in Crash Had Only One Engine Running

AMARILLO (AP) – Federal investigators say a Tyler man who died last month when the small plane he was piloting crashed in a Texas Panhandle neighborhood had only one engine running and was trying to return to the airport. A National Transportation Safety Board report said pilot Ben Harned IV, 53, had contacted an air traffic controller after takeoff July 25 to say he was returning to Amarillo’s Tradewind Airport. Before crashing, he told the controller his left engine had stopped and he had the airport in sight. The plane crashed in a neighborhood five minutes after takeoff. Its wing clipped a mobile home. Harned had been headed to Lubbock in the Piper PA-30.