John G. Reading of Broomfield was two hours into his flight from Denver to Red Oak, Iowa, that morning when he asked air traffic controllers if he could lower his altitude from 15,000 feet after he encountered ice, National Transportation Safety Board investigators said in the report.
Controllers gave Reading clearance to descend to 11,000 feet, but soon after he began his descent, air traffic controllers warned of “extreme precipitation” in the area and permitted an even lower altitude, according to the report.
Dashboard camera footage from a car driving east on Interstate 80 shortly after 9 a.m. June 2 captured Reading's plane — an amateur-built Van's RV7— in a nosedive before it crashed in a field 260 feet south of Interstate 80, about 12 miles east of Kearney, according to the report.
The dashboard camera footage also revealed that it was "raining heavily" at the time of the crash, Abraham said in the report.
Buffalo County Sheriff's deputies were called to the crash scene at 9:12 a.m.
First responders found the downed aircraft in a field near the east end of Bassway Strip State Wildlife Management Area, a state park that runs along the Platte River just south of the interstate, the Sheriff's Office said in a news release.
Reading had been a certified single-engine airplane pilot since June 2019, according to Federal Aviation Administration airmen records.