Pilot walks away from crash

A Tennessee pilot walked away with no injuries after his small plane crashed and burned Saturday afternoon at Tucumcari Municipal Airport.

Little was left of the small aircraft after it crashed in a ditch a few hundred yards east of a runway, then caught fire.

New Mexico State Police officers gathered near the crash site to investigate. The Federal Aviation Administration also was contracted.

Quay County Sheriff Russell Shafer said the crash occurred about 1:45 p.m.

The pilot, who identified himself as Feiyu Chen, 59, of Memphis, said in an interview at the airport about two hours after the crash that he was returning on a solo flight from an aircraft conference in Phoenix and planned to stop at the Tucumcari airport for refueling. He said he previously had stopped in Tucumcari for fuel during cross-country flights.

Chen, a U.S. citizen born in China, said his aircraft bounced twice while trying to make a landing "too fast" on one of the runways.

Chen said tried to go airborne again and circle around for another landing attempt.

"I wanted to do another go-round," he said. "I don't know what happened ... maybe a stall."

Chen lost control of the plane, and it crashed it shortly thereafter.

Jim Sewell, the airport's manager, said an employee, Paul Sena, told him the airplane bounced on the runway three times before it careened out of control and crashed.

Chen saw smoke and fire coming from his plane after it crashed into the ditch. He opened the plane's door and ran from the aircraft shortly before flames consumed it.

Was he scared?

"A little bit, yeah," he said, laughing.

He said he lost his eyeglasses, luggage and cellphone in the fire.

Chen said he didn't suffer injuries in the crash. The only evidence of a mishap was a small tear in the cuff of one of his pant legs. He surmised that was caused by brush when he ran away from the burning plane.

Chen identified the aircraft as a Sirrus SR22, a single-engine model with a carbon-fiber body. Chen said the plane was only five years old, and he never experienced mechanical problems with it before.

After calling his wife and other family members on a borrowed phone at the airport to let them know he was all right, he said he was thinking of hitching a ride that afternoon to catch a commercial flight in Amarillo or Albuquerque to go back to Memphis.

However, airport workers advised him to stay put until state police finished talking to him. Because it would be late in the day before the preliminary investigation was complete, they advised him to call one of the historic Route 66 motels in town so he could stay there overnight.

Chen was asked whether he would fly small planes again after his experience.

"No more, no more," he said. "No more flights for me."