Irene Herrera used the brightest star in the sky to pinpoint the location of a plane crash Monday night, then watched as emergency vehicles sped past her in the wrong direction.

"We could see the fire, and we tried to flag them down," but they didn't stop, the Piñon Hills resident said Tuesday. Finally, a cameraman from an Albuquerque television station stopped to talk to Herrera and her daughter, and called law enforcement to report what they'd seen, she said. "We told them they were looking in the wrong place," Herrera said.

Santa Fe County Sheriff Greg Solano said the 2008 Pilatus PC-12 — a single engine, turbo-prop airplane — crashed about 10:22 p.m. northeast of the Santa Fe Airport. Rescuers didn't find the wreckage until a LifeFlight helicopter spotted it about 11:30 p.m., he said. Emergency personnel had been looking in the area of the landfill, about three miles from the crash site, because initial information and weather conditions indicated the wreckage was there, he said.

The plane's pilot — 54-year-old Richard P. Gardner of Santa Fe and Lubbock, Texas — was killed in the crash.

Herrera said she and her daughter were on their way home from Borders bookstore in Santa Fe and were driving down County Road 70 when she saw the plane flying low in the sky. She said it appeared as if a light was following the plane, and she thought it might have been on fire.

"Then I saw it tip over, and it seemed like it was going to hit the ground," Herrera said. She said she didn't see the plane hit the ground but saw and heard a small explosion, followed by a big explosion. The first explosion was orange-colored, while the second was "big and bright and red," Herrera said. Her daughter then called 911, she said.

"I thought, 'There's people in (the plane),' " Herrera said. "It's sad."

Troy Padilla, general manager of the Santa Fe Air Center, where Gardner housed his plane, said two of his employees were waiting for the aircraft and saw it begin turning to line up at one of the airport's runways. Then they saw the plane plummet to the ground, he said. "It fell below the horizon, and they became real concerned," he said of his employees.

Still, they didn't see or hear anything to indicate a crash and didn't know what happened until emergency crews began to arrive, Padilla said. The employees then told rescuers it appeared the plane had gone down near the Caja del Rio landfill, he said.

Jennifer Kaiser, an investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board, said it appeared the plane's left wing hit the ground first and it cartwheeled. She estimated the debris field was about 150 yards long.

Gardner had been cleared for an instrument landing at the Santa Fe Municipal Airport even though the tower closed at 9 p.m. Solano said a recording device at the airport picked up his radio transmission that said he was five miles from the airport just before 10:22 p.m. Gardner never made a mayday call, Kaiser said.

Solano said it appeared from the debris field that the plane hit the ground, then traveled about 10 feet before breaking up in an area the size of a football field and about a quarter-mile long. Kaiser said the plane broke into hundreds of pieces.

Gardner's body was found in the middle of the debris field, Solano said. Also found in the wreckage were several intact bottles of wine as well as numerous broken wine bottles, said Lt. Dennis O'Brien of the Sheriff's Office. Gardner had called his wife before he arrived and said he was bringing wine home, O'Brien said.

A Santa Fe County fire unit came to the crash site to extinguish the resulting brush fire, Solano said.

Gardner flew from New York City — a flight of about five hours — before landing in Lubbock and gassing up before heading to Santa Fe, Kaiser said.

Details about Gardner were scant Tuesday, and efforts to reach his wife were unsuccessful. Solano said Gardner had retired from IBM six years ago. Kaiser characterized him as an experienced pilot with more than 2,000 flight hours and said he'd flown in and out of Santa Fe's airport multiple times.

Padilla said Gardner had been a customer at Santa Fe Air Center for about two years and had a previous plane before buying the Pilatus PC-12. He said his employees were fond of Gardner, and he was a "diligent" and "meticulous" pilot.

Solano said Gardner had picked up the brand-new plane only last month. Padilla said the plane, which likely cost between $4 million and $6 million, was fast, capable of covering long distances and able to carry several people. The plane is imported from Switzerland but assembled in Denver, he said. Pilatus representatives were in town Tuesday to investigate the crash, he said.

Kaiser said a cause of the crash likely won't be determined for a year.

Contact Jason Auslander at 986-3076 or :jauslander@sfnewmexican.com.