HANSON, Mass. (AP) – A small plane crashed in an airfield just north of the Cranland Airport on Wednesday, killing one person on board.
G. Lamar Crittenden Jr., 63, of Wareham was the only person on the single-engine, one-seat ultralight aircraft, which crashed about 40 yards from the runway at 8:53 a.m, Hanson police said.
The ultralight was attempting to land on the north runway, when it crashed in the adjacent field, police said.
Arlene Salac, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said there was no immediate information on what caused the crash.
Salac said the pilot was flying under “visual flight rules … It was not being worked by our air traffic controllers when the accident occurred,” Salac said.
Cranland Airport opened about 50 years ago as a private airfield for crop dusters servicing the area’s cranberry bogs. It is now privately owned and open to commercial use.
The cause of the crash remains under investigation.
There appeared to be no preexisting damage to the aircraft, according to John Lamontagne, spokesman for the state’s Executive Office of Transportation.
Richard Bunker, the state’s aeronautics inspector, said: “We didn’t find anything wrong with the airframe or the engine.”
AP-ES-08-01-07 1822EDT
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