3/20/2009 12:25:00 AM NTSB & FAA investigating
plane
crash, move wreckage to Phoenix
Les Stukenberg/The Daily Courier
Yavapai County Sheriff's Sgt. Mark Howard looks at the ID of the victim of a fatal plane crash near Sweet Valley Farm in Paulden on Wednesday evening. Chino Valley Fire Department Engine 63 was the first unit on scene and reported that witnesses said the plane spiraled into the ground.
It may be a month or more before investigators know why an experimental plane crashed near Paulden late Wednesday afternoon, killing the 49-year-old Texan at the controls.
Dead in the crash is Curtis Lynn Jarvis of Houston, Texas, said National Transportation Safety Board Investigator NTSB investigator Josh Cawthra.
The NTSB has moved the wreckage of the plane to a secure location in Phoenix for further examination.
The NTSB said in a telephone interview Thursday that an on-scene NTSB investigator determined that all the primary flight controls and major structural components of the plane ended up within a five-foot radius on the ground where the plane hit just east of Highway 89 near Sweet Valley Road.
However, preliminary information on the crash should be up on the NTSB's website - ntsb.gov - within the next five days, he added.
The plane was a homebuilt, single engine, kit aircraft called an RV-6, Cawthra said.
The manufacturer's website says the RV-6 is a 43-inch-wide two-seater with a baggage compartment behind the seats. The RV-6 made its first flight in 1985, the website says.
The Federal Aviation Administration is helping with the investigation, Cawthra said.
