Here is another article and link to a video from the local News station:
Pilot: Nazy Hirani died in the crash.
http://www.thekathrynreport.com/2010/03/1-killed-when-airplane-crashes-at_11.htmlThursday, March 11, 2010
1 killed when airplane crashes at Stellar Airpark in Chandler, Arizona - North American P-51D-25-NT Mustang N514NH
Charlie Leight/The Arizona Republic
A fixed wing, single-engine World War II-era airplane crashed into a hangar at Stellar Airpark in west Chandler.
One person was killed Thursday afternoon when a fixed wing, single-engine World War II-era airplane crashed into a hangar at Stellar Airpark in west Chandler.
The crash occurred about 1:20 p.m. Thursday.
At least one hangar caught on fire, Ian Gregor of the Federal Aviation Administration said. Authorities were evacuating hangars at the airpark. . The park is south of Chandler Boulevard, just west of McClintock Drive.
Smoke was reported to be coming from one of the buildings. The fire had been extinguished by about 2 p.m.
The plane was identified as a P-51 Mustang, a 1944 single-seat fighter plane.
Authorities were searching through the debris to determine if anyone else was killed.
The cause of the crash is unknown, and no details on the identity of the pilot were released.
A witness, Karie Russell, was at nearby Desert Breeze Park with her two daughters, ages 3 and 5, when she saw the plane. She said it was olive, yellow and orange and was coming in on an angle from the east.
As it came in to land, it was going way too fast, she said. It turned sharply at a 90-degree angle, then dropped sharply. She said she expected it to come up again, but it didn't.
"I heard three sputtering sounds and then saw a fireball. I thought, 'Oh my God, that plane just blew up,''' she said.
She said she lives in the neighborhood and regularly watches the planes take off and land.
Normally, they come in from the east and make a slow turn to the south before landing.
In June 2007, a twin-engine Cessna 340A airplane clipped a house and crashed into a residential street just west of Stellar Airpark. The National Transportation Safety Board found that the plane suffered engine failure due to fuel starvation.
The pilot, who survived, took off from Stellar, extended his landing gear, got odd readings in his cockpit and decided to return. While trying to land, the plane clipped one home, hit the roof of another, destroyed a tree and a parked pickup and plowed through a brick wall.
