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Newspaper and Travel Guide
for Pecos Country of West Texas
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Clues sought in Balmorhea Lake fatal plane crash
A pilot from southeastern Arizona was killed Sunday afternoon when the two-passenger experimental aircraft he was reportedly flying crashed in front of hundreds of stunned onlookers at Balmorhea Lake.
Charles Lee Stutesman, 77, of Bowie, Az., was pronounced dead by Reeves County Justice of the Peace Cody West about 90 minutes after the crash was reported at 12:58 p.m. by Easter Sunday visitors to the lake in southern Reeves County.
Stutesman’s body was recovered by boaters from the middle of the lake, where his RV6 kit aircraft sank. He is believed to have been the pilot of the plane, but officials were still waiting to recover the plane early Monday afternoon to see if there was a second person in the aircraft.
Stutesman’s body was taken first to Peaceful Gardens Funeral Home in Pecos, before being sent to El Paso for autopsy to determine if any medical problem led to the crash.
Officials with the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board were scheduled to be in Balmorhea on Monday to take over the investigation into the crash, the first fatal plane crash in Reeves County in 24 years.
“All we’re really doing is holding the scene for the FAA,” said Texas Department of Public Safety Trooper Robert Orr of Balmorhea, who was in charge of Sunday’s initial investigation. “They’ll be here tomorrow, and tomorrow morning the (DPS) dive team will come out here, float the plane and bring it to the shore for the FAA.”
Some eyewitnesses to the crash said they thought they saw a second person in the plane with Stutesman, but officials said they could not confirm or deny that until the plane was floated to the surface to see if there was a second victim inside.
DPS Trooper Daniel Leyva of Monahans said that the plane was sitting on the bottom of the lake in about 11 feet of water.
DPS dive personnel said that the team would use a flotation bag to life the wreck off the bottom of the lake so it could be towed to shore, and then removed by a town truck from B&B Wrecking of Pecos.
Leyva said the first report officials received was from a motorist on Interstate 10 at the 201 mile marker, about five miles northwest of the lake.
“About 5-10 minutes later we started getting calls that the plane crashed into the lake,” said Leyva, who was one of the troopers assisting Orr with the investigation.
“We picked up one body,” said Luis Saenz of Marfa, who along with his brother-in-law Randy Sanchez were the first to get their boat out to the crash site. “The majority of people saw it (crash), but I just saw it come up, not go down.”
“Everybody who had a boat responded, but we were the first ones to arrive,” he said. “When we got out there all it was was debris. The plane was floating, and he was on top.
“We pulled him in to see if he was breathing, but he was gone,” Saenz said. “We had a little trouble getting him into the boat, and some of the other people who went out there helped, and then we tried to see if anybody else was in there.”
The two brought the body back to shore while the wreckage of the plane was still at the water’s surface, Saenz said. “By the time we went back out with the Game Warden (Jared Self), it was completely under water.”
Anna Saenz of Marfa heard a low flying plane moments before the crash. Saenz works for DPS in Marfa, and was at the lake with her husband Tony and their young son, Tony Jr., for a family gathering for Easter.
“My wife heard the plane and said, ‘Look,” and then there was a boom,” Tony Saenz said.
Orr’s preliminary report said the plane flew over the late at a low altitude and speed, and made two passes over the lake. The plane came in from the west on the second approach, banked back towards the north over the lake and struck the water, causing the aircraft to break up.
“All I can say is we saw the plane real low, and when it hit the lake, it fell apart like a puzzle,” said another Marfa resident, who asked not to be identified, who was at another camp on the southwest shore of the lake. “He had already been around one time, and I think he was flying just to show people at the lake, but he got too low.”
“It almost looked like he was trying to avoid hitting people over here, because he came in very low, and swooped down here,” Saenz said. “My wife said ‘Look at the plane! Look at the plane!’ because it was really low.”
Stutesman’s ex-wife, Cezanne Stutesman, said he was born in Kansas City, and began flying there. “He was a famous stunt pilot called ‘The Red Barron”, said Stutesman, who said the couple had been married 17 years and was in the process of reconciliation.
She said in Arizona he worked as a crop duster, continued to do stunt flying, and was certified to train pilots. The CV6 she said was “Dale Earnhardt red with a decal of a Thunderbird on it,” and that her former husband had 900 hours of experience flying the plane.
“Since he was a crop duster, he spent the better part of his life flying low to the ground,” she said.
“People in Arizona consulted with him on how to build planes, and he was a flying instructor for many decades,” Stutesman added. However, she said Charles Stutesman didn’t have any known family members in the Balmorhea area.
“I’ve talked to the rest of the family, and we’re clueless on why he was there,” she said.
Saenz said papers that also were found on the surface of the water identified the victim as Stutesman, from Bowie, a small town about 100 miles east of Tucson, Ariz. According to records on the FAA’s website, Stutesman was the owner of the RV6 fixed wing experimental aircraft, manufactured in 2002, registered on May 30 and certified for air-worthiness on July 19 of that year.
Cezanne Stutesman said Charles carried a spiral bound notebook in his pocket, that might provide information if it is recovered. “He has all of his notes and registry trips in that tablet,” she said. A laptop computer might also have been on the plane, she added.
Stutesman is survived by four children and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Area weather conditions reported at Pecos Municipal Airport just prior to the crash were fair skies and temperatures in the upper 80s, with winds out of the west between 16 and 21 mph.
The plane crash was the second emergency call to the lake in two hours on Sunday. Sheriff’s deputies were called out shortly before noon when a pickup drove off the north side of the Balmorhea Lake dam. The truck reportedly was southbound on County Road 319 when it hit a rough patch of road and bounced off the left side, becoming caught on some rocks just below the road across the top of the dam.
Both the driver and a passenger inside the pick-up were able to escape without injuries, and the pickup was pulled back up to the road a short time later.
One injured in Barstow SUV rollover
A Barstow man was injured on Sunday in a one-vehicle rollover on the east side of town, while Pecos Police are still looking for the driver of a vehicle that took out a school zone warning light on South Eddy Street sometime early Saturday morning.
Cesar Cruz was injured when the Ford Excursion he was driving rolled over and ended up in a field on Brandt Street in Barstow, just south of the FM 516 intersection. Ward County Sheriff’s Department Chief Deputy Ben Deishler said Cruz was in the SUV with two juveniles headed northbound on Brandt when he lost control of the vehicle and drove off the left side of the street, causing the Exursion to roll 1¼ times before coming to rest on its side.
The two juveniles in the vehicle were not taken to the hospital following the accident. Deishler said the investigation of the accident was turned over to the Texas Department of Public Safety.
The accident in Pcos was discovered at 4:43 a.m. on Saturday, in the 1600 block of South Eddy Street. “The officer found a mailbox in the turning lane of the 1600 block of South Eddy, and when he got closer, he saw the speed zone sign had been knocked over,” said Pecos Police Chief Clay McKinney.
“He found some glass in the roadway, possibly from one of the windows of the vehicle, along with two pieces of parts belonging to the vehicle,” the chief added. The mailbox is also believed to have come from in front of a house in the 1600 block of Eddy.
McKinney said the Texas Department of Transportation, which maintains the school zone warning sign and lights on Eddy Street, was notified of the damage to the sign, but that an exact cost to repair the sign was unknown as of Monday morning.
Third Annual Fund Day set for this month
The Third Annual Fun Day 2010 for disabled children will be held from 1-6 p.m., Saturday, April 24, at Maxey Park.
The event is for all children in pre-kindergarten through high school and everyone is invited to attend this fun-filled day.
For more information contact Juanita Hannah at 448-6117.
Teacher requests will be accepted
Pecos-Barstow-Toyah ISD will be accepting teacher requests for the 2010-2011 school year through Friday, April 16, at the student’s current campus.
Parents may request one teacher.
Classroom rosters will be filled, first by prioritizing students participating in special programs, second, by numbers of students per class and grouping of students for educational purposes, and finally, by parent requests at the principal’s discretion. This will not be a first-come, first served system.
West of the Pecos Run set for May
West of the Pecos Run, 5K and one mile fun run/walk will be held beginning at 9 a.m., Saturday, May 22, at the Pecos High School.
Entry form are available at pbtisd.esc18.net (scroll).
Sent $15 entry to: West of the Pecos 5K, 1201 S. Park, Pecos, Tx. 79772.
Contract information: Tammy Walls, at 432-447-7400 ext. 8157, or e-mail at HYPERLINK "mailto:twalls@pbtisd.esc18.net" twalls@pbtisd.esc18.net.
Athletic booster club meets on Mondays
The Pecos Eagle Athletic Booster Club meets every Monday, at 7 p.m., in the Pecos High School cafeteria.
Membership is $10.00 for individual and $15.00 per family.
All Eagle fans are encouraged to join the booster club.
Cable company planning to add HDTV channels
Pecos’ local cable company announced last week it will be adding high-definition channels and digital video recorder (DVRs) options to its customers here, so that viewers with the new HDTV sets can take full advantage of their capabilities.
Suddenlink Communications said it has embarked on a three-year, companywide program calling for approximately $350 million of capital investments above and beyond the company’s traditional capital spending levels. As part of that program, the company is introducing HDTV to its Pecos lineup.
New HD channels include: Lifetime HD, ESPN HD, ESPN 2 HD, Fox Sports Southwest HD, TNT HD, A&E HD, USA HD, TBS HD, National Geographic HD, FX HD, Food Network HD, Travel Channel HD, SyFy HD, History Channel HD, Home and Garden Television HD and Bravo HD.
HDTV offers a widescreen format, similar to a move theater, with distinctly sharper images than standard TV. It also provides better sound quality. Not all networks or TV stations offer HD programming. Viewers much have an HD-capable television connected to an HD-capable Suddenlink receiver in order to see high-definition programs.
Some channels, including the four main network channels out of Midland-Odessa, will remain in non-HDTV format. KOSA, KWES, KPEJ and KMID are broadcasting over the air in HDTV, but the signals do not reach Pecos, and the satellite uplink being used by Suddenlink to access the channels is not yet providing and HDTV singal.
Suddenlink also announced it is now offering digital video recorders in Pecos. DVRs allow viewers to pause live TV shows and resume viewing when convenient, record up to 30 hours of programming, and record two shows on other channels while watching another recorded show. A DVR receiver also serves as a receiver for Suddenlink digital video programming.
Suddenlink customers who own HD-capable television sets and subscribe to Suddenlink video services and required equipment can get all of the new HD channels free.
More information about local Suddenlink services is available by visiting the company’s Web site at suddenlink.com and entering a zip code, or by calling toll-free 1-888-628-9039.
Early voting underway in primary runoffs
Early voting began slowly this morning at the Reeves County Courthouse, but election workers hope that will change throughout this week.
“It was really slow this morning, but since it’s the first day of early voting that’s what we expected,” said Reeves County Clerk Dianne Florez.
Florez said that 84 individuals have cast their vote early in the Democratic race and none in the Republican.
“We expect for more people to come out and vote early,” said Florez.
Florez said that she wanted to remind everyone that they can cast their vote early for the runoff election.
The two local contested races in the Democratic Primary are for Reeves County Judge and Reeves County Commissioner’s Precinct 2.
The runoff will be Dr. Won J. Bang against incumbent Sam Contreras. The winner will face Republican Robert Hanks, who ran unopposed in the March 2 primary election.
Final figures showed that Contreras received 680 votes to 1,163 votes for Dr. Bang. The third candidate, Al Gomez, received 572 votes on March 2.
In the Preinct 2 runoff, Kyle Taylor, who had 276 votes to lead the five person field, will face incumbent Gabriel C. Martinez, who received 193 votes. Ron Garcia, (111 votes); Paul S. Deishler (107) and Mario Flores (58) were the other candidates in the March primary.
Republican voters have no runoff elections on the county level, but one regional one, for the 23rd Congressional District, where Will Hurd and Francisco “Quico” Canseco are seeking to win the nomination to face Democrat Ciro Rodriguez in the Nov. 2 general election.
Story Hour set for next week
Story Hour will be held at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., Monday, April 12, at the Reeves County Library, 505 S. Park Street.
All the children in the community are invited to attend and must be accompanied by a parent or guardian.
For more information contact the library at 445-5340.
Child Abuse Prevention Month is set this month
Child Abuse Prevention Month is recognized this month and everyone is asked to participate.
Public awareness alone is an amazingly effective weapon in this fight. The message of prevention can take many forms – watching out for kids next door or down the street, helping neighbors in distress, donating to the local food bank, and getting your friends and your church involved in community events.
The blue ribbon is the international symbol for child abuse prevention. Representing the bruised and battered bodies of abused children, blue ribbons are a constant reminder that we all have a role to play in keeping children safe.
For more information on National Child Abuse Prevention Month, contact Sen. Uresti’s San Antonio district office at 210-932-2568 or go to: HYPERLINK "http://www.childwelfare.gov/preventing/preventionmonth/" http://www.childwelfare.gov/preventing/preventionmonth/ and www.blueribbontaskforce.
To order a ribbon or pin go to: HYPERLINK "http://www.blueribbonsonlin.org" www.blueribbonsonlin.org.
Pecos Enterprise
York M. "Smokey" Briggs, Publisher
324 S. Cedar St., Pecos, TX 79772
Phone 432-445-5475, FAX 432-445-4321
e-mail news@pecos.net
Associated Press text, photo, graphic, audio and/or video material shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium.
Copyright 2003-04 by Pecos Enterprise
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