A small engine plane crashed near Los Banos, killing its pilot the evening of Aug. 26.

The man, identified as Mahesh Chigurupati, 31, of Santa Clara, was the only person inside the plane.

At approximately 7:02 p.m. Chigurupati's Cessna 172 crashed into a field about 200 yards east of Interstate 5 outside of Los Banos near Pole Line Road and Canyon Road. The pilot had reportedly taken off from somewhere near San Jose.

Emergency services personnel immediately responded to the scene in hope that they could save a life. When that turned out to be an impossibility local authorities secured the scene for federal officials to began an investigation into what went wrong.

Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke said the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are the lead agencies investigating the incident and future updates will come from those agencies. Warnke was at the crash scene Wednesday afternoon as the plane's fuselage was turned over and Chigurupati's body was removed from the wreckage.

A local pilot was at Los Banos Municipal Airport at about 5 p.m. when he and others picked up distress communications sent by Chigurupati. A third pilot took to the air to attempt to guide the troubled plane to the airport where emergency personnel were posted.

The Westside Express has heard a recording of the mid-air conversation between Chigurupati and the good Samaritan trying to guide him to a safe landing. The two planes circled about a 4-mile area outside of Los Banos in an attempt to burn off fuel.

On the recording, Chigurupati can be heard saying he'd rather not land near homes. The pilot in the other aircraft told him to avoid green because those are trees. Instead, the pilot directed the distressed Cessna to land on brown, which is dry brush in open fields. After the Cessna crashed the pilot who tried to guide it safely to the airport expressed remorse as to the outcome of his efforts.

The cause of the accident is unknown at this time.