วันพุธที่ 25 มิถุนายน พ.ศ. 2551

Updated: Mass. woman rented plane hour before fatal crash



OWLS HEAD — A Massachusetts woman died Saturday morning when the small plane she was flying crashed near Crockett’s Beach.
Janet Strong, 73, of Topsfield, Mass. died in the crash.

The plane, a Piper Cherokee PA28, belonged to the Knox County Flying Club. Knox County Regional Airport Manager said that the plane had not been airborne long and was not enroute to another location.

Strong rented the plane that morning, according to Maine Public Safety spokesman Steve McCausland. She waited an hour to take off because of fog.
Strong was in the area to visit friends.

The bottom of the small plane, including a wheel, was visible about 200 feet from the end of Point View Lane which runs off to the west of Crockett’s Beach Road.

Owls Head firefighters, Rockland firefighters and emergency medical crews as well as South Thomaston emergency crews responded.

Neighbor Keith Simmons, who lives at the end of the road where the crash occurred, said he heard the engine and then the loud crash.
Simmons helped bring a Rockland paramedic to the plane in his rowboat. A marine patrol boat also was at the scene within a half hour or so of the crash that was reported at about 10:30 a.m. The woman’s body was found under a wing of the wrecked plane.

The woman’s body was removed at about 11:30 a.m. and taken by marine patrol boat to Crockett’s Beach where it would then be put in an ambulance.

Simmons said the sun was out when the crash occurred although there were thick fog banks around which enveloped the crash site shortly after it occurred.

The tide was coming at the time of the crash and the plane was being covered by 11:30 a.m.

The Federal Aviation Administration was contacted. The FAA and the National Safety Transportation Board were to investigate. The flying club had insurance on the plane and it was expected to be removed by a boat salvage operation.

The Coast Guard responded with 25-foot and 47-foot boat crews from Station Rockland. A Hercules fixed-wing aircrew from Naval Air Station Brunswick, Maine conducted a fly over of the crash site.

The area where the plane went down was very shallow and Coast Guard boat crews were unable to access the plane in the three-foot water..

“In cases like this we depend on our local partners and their resources for assistance,” said Lt. Lisa Tinker of the Coast Guard, the command duty officer at Sector Northern New England. “The Maine Marine Patrol crews were able to navigate the shallow depths to access the downed aircraft.”

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