BREAKING: Plane Crashes in Texas Leave At Least Two Dead

By Mark Leberfinger, AccuWeather.com Staff Writer

February 4,2015; 10:35PM,EST

 

 

A small plane crashed into a Texas TV station tower Wednesday night, killing the pilot and knocking the station off the air.
The Lubbock Fire Department reported the tower fatality on its Facebook page.
The crash occurred about 7:30 p.m. local time into the KCBD-TV tower in Lubbock. A single-engine Piper PA-46 crashed as its pilot was on approach to Preston Smith International Airport in Lubbock, the FAA told the station.
The pilot of a single-engine Piper PA-46 died after his plane crashed into a Lubbock, Texas, TV tower on Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2015, officials said. KCBD-TV was knocked off the air as a result of the crash. (Photo/Lubbock Fire Department).
No one in the station was injured, according to the KCBD website. The employees have since evacuated the building.
Icing and windy conditions are potential factors in the crash, AccuWeather.com Senior Meteorologist Frank Strait said.
The weather conditions were windy with fog and freezing drizzle around the time of the incident, Strait said.
"At the time, a cold front was south of Lubbock, the surface front was roughly from just south of the Midland-Odessa area to just south of Abilene to just east of Wichita Falls," Strait said. "At the time of the crash, surface winds in the area were out of the north-northeast at 21 mph with gusts to 31 mph. A short while later, freezing drizzle began at 7:51 p.m."
Also important to consider is the conditions aloft where the plane was actually located, Strait explained.
"The airport at 8:47 p.m. reported a cloudy sky at 700 feet above ground level," he said. This cloud deck extended up to approximately 2,000 feet above ground level at the time."
"A weather balloon launched from Amarillo, 109 miles north of Lubbock, at around 6:00 p.m. Central Time gives us an indication of the conditions aloft at the time of the crash. The atmosphere was saturated above Amarillo from the surface to around 2,000 feet aloft at the time of the balloon launch. This would hint at a cloudy sky and fog present, which is what Amarillo reported at the time," he said.
The crash apparently took off about 700 feet of KCBD's 814-foot tower, Fox 34 reported.
A second plane also crashed in Argyle, Texas, on approach to the Denton Municipal Airport, Fox 4 News in Dallas-Fort Worth reported on its Twitter feed.
The pilot, the lone occupant of the twin-engine Cessna, died in the crash in a field near an Argyle school, The Cross Timbers Gazette newspaper reported on its website.
It was raining and 37 F in Denton around the time of the second crash, Strait said. Temperatures may have been at or below freezing where the plane was flying at the time.