Ultralight plane crashes in Boulder City; pilot dies

An ultralight plane crashed on a dry lake bed in Boulder City at about 7:30 a.m. today, killing the pilot, Boulder City police said. The crash site was a remote area about nine miles south of the interchange of U.S. highways 93 and 95, city Public Information Officer Rose Ann Miele said.

Witnesses told officers arriving on the scene that they saw the plane attempting to make a turn about 50 feet off the ground and then going into a nosedive before crashing, Officer Levi Gilliam said.

Police officers and a Boulder City Fire Department crew responding to a 911 call found the wreckage and pronounced the pilot, described as a white male 45 to 50 years of age, dead at the scene. A sighting of the crash was phoned in to police dispatch at 7:39 a.m., Gilliam said.

The Clark County coroner and the Federal Aviation Administration were summoned to the scene. The name of the pilot was not immediately released pending notification of next of kin, police said.

Miele said investigators believe the pilot took off from a spot in unincorporated Clark County south of Boulder City used by ultralight pilots.