[chris]

A homebuilt airplane crashed into a North Las Vegas house shortly after takeoff on the morning of Aug. 22, 2008, killing pilot Mack Creekmore Murphree Jr., 76, and homeowners Jack Costa, 80, and Lucy Costa, 77.

Murphree, of Dayton, Nevada, radioed the control tower at North Las Vegas Airport around 6:28 a.m. that he could not gain altitude and was going down, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. The experimental Velocity 173RG, a kit-built airplane with a rear-mounted engine and propeller, had logged only about five hours of flight time.

Investigators later found the flight was the aircraft's first with a newly installed engine supercharger engaged. The plane came down about a half mile from the airport, striking a house near Lake Mead Boulevard and Simmons Street and igniting a fire fed by aviation fuel.

Jack Costa and his wife, Lucy Costa, were killed inside the home. Two of the three victims died at the scene; the third was pronounced dead after being taken to University Medical Center. Crews from the Las Vegas and North Las Vegas fire departments responded, and a hazardous materials team was called in briefly before being released once firefighters brought the blaze under control.

The NTSB's investigation found the probable cause was a partial loss of engine power during the climb after the supercharger's drive belt came loose, the result of how the belt tension and supercharger system had been installed by the airplane's owner and builder. NTSB records list Mike Killgore, of Las Vegas, as the registered owner; the aircraft had received its FAA airworthiness certificate five months earlier, in March 2008.

The crash, one of two involving planes that departed North Las Vegas Airport within a week that August, renewed debate over experimental aircraft flying out of the field. Clark County Aviation Director Randall Walker said he did not believe "experimental and high-risk aircraft operations ... belong in an urban airport" and pushed for restrictions on where kit-built planes could be tested. The president of the Experimental Aircraft Association countered that a single accident did not justify grounding an entire category of aviation.

The audio posted here is emergency radio traffic, roughly eight minutes of dispatch and first-responder communications as fire and rescue units were sent to the reported plane crash and house fire and worked the scene. It is presented as a logging tape, not a 911 call.