Pilot killed in crash at South Lake Tahoe

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE - The pilot of a single-engine aircraft was killed when the plane crashed just after take-off from the Lake Tahoe Airport on Sunday afternoon, authorities said.

The plane took off from the airport about 1 p.m., but quickly experienced trouble and went down between the runway and the Upper Truckee River, said Marty Scheuerman, South Lake Tahoe Fire division chief of operations.

"It looks like he banked hard and came down just east of the airport," Scheuerman said.

The pilot was dead at the scene, Scheuerman said. His name was withheld pending notification of next-of-kin.

The plane was a fixed-wing, single-engine Cessna, said El Dorado Sheriff's Lt. Les Lovell. The pilot was apparently the lone occupant of the plane; emergency personnel searched the area but found no other passengers or victims, Lovell said.

The plane did not catch fire in the crash, Scheuerman said. Firefighters used absorbent material to clean up two to three gallons of spilled aviation gas, and the fuel did not get into water or critical habitat, Scheuerman added.

The cause of the crash remained under investigation. Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board were on their way to the crash site Sunday afternoon.

South Lake Tahoe and Lake Valley firefighters responded to the scene, as well as officers from the South Lake Tahoe Police Department and El Dorado County Sheriff's Office.