Two dead in small plane crash south of Tri-State airport

BUFFALO, W.Va. — Local investigators are awaiting a team from the National Transportation Safety Board to come to the area and find out why a single-engine plane crashed Sunday afternoon just after take-off.

The pilot and a passenger were killed in the single-engine plane, which went down about four miles south of Tri-State Airport — information that was confirmed by Kevin Price, operations director at the Tri-State Airport, and Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Jim Peters.

The names of the victims have not been released, but Price said a news conference is tentatively scheduled for Monday afternoon, where more details are expected to come to light. Peters did confirm that the aircraft was destroyed.

Because of the deaths and the destruction of the plane, Peters says the National Transportation Safety Board is taking charge of the investigation. An NTSB representative was not immediately available Sunday.

The single-engine plane was owned by a man from Richland, Mich., according to FAA records. A telephone message left for the registered owner was not immediately returned. The plane was a Columbia Aircraft LC41, manufactured in 2005, according to FAA records.

Wreckage from the plane, which took off from Tri-State Airport under gray skies but no rain, was found about 100 to 150 yards away from a home on Buffalo Creek Road, authorities said at Buffalo Valley Missionary Baptist Church, where media gathered.

Garrett Mayo, 41, was sipping coffee and playing video games with his kids at his home Sunday when he heard what he first thought was a motorcycle go screaming past his home.

“It sounded like a (motorcycle) going by really fast,” Mayo said. “I didn’t hear it crash, but then the whole house shook. I knew that wasn’t a motorcycle.”

Mayo and his 12-year-old son, Austin, took off on their Honda Fourtrax four-wheelers up onto the steep hill to see what happened.

Mayo found the wreckage about a quarter of a mile off Buffalo Creek Road and about 100 yards from the home of his neighbor, Lee Preston.

“I saw a single-engine plane torn to pieces,” Mayo said, sitting on his Honda Fourtrax four-wheeler. “I can tell you it was not pretty. It hit several trees and stopped at a big Poplar tree.”

Mayo said that when he saw the wreckage, he shuddered and turned away to make sure his son didn’t see it.

“I sent my son back down the hill when I saw where it was,” Mayo said. “I didn’t want him to sleep with images of that.”

Price held a brief news conference around 3:15 Sunday afternoon, which confirmed what area residents saw and heard.

He said the crash happened about 3/4 of a mile from the Missionary Baptist Church, which is located where Buffalo Creek and the Right Fork of Buffalo Creek Road come together, just south of the airport.

Price said the location of the crash was straight up a steep hill behind the house and near a gas pipeline right-of-way, accessible only by four wheeler.

 Dave Caudill, fire chief for the Ceredo Volunteer Fire Department, said one of their units was on the hill within seven minutes of the crash.

Caudill said the response was fantastic, including Ceredo and Kenova, Huntington and Lavalette fire departments and EMS, West Virginia State Police, Wayne County Sheriff, as well as two trucks from Ashland-Boyd County Emergency Management.

“We have an alert procedure that when it goes off, we can get certain assets to certain places no matter where it happens,” said Caudill, who only lives about three miles from the crash site. We got one unit up on the hill and I came down to set up a command post. We started moving assets and unfortunately didn’t need them, so we pulled most of them back to cover Kenova.”

The crash is the second fatal accident near Tri-State Airport this year. In January, six people were killed when a twin-engine Piper PA-34 crashed after hitting power lines. The victims included four members of the American Polish Aero-Club in Chicago. The six were flying from Illinois to Florida, with a planned stop in North Carolina, to look at airplanes for sale.

 “Most of the crashes we have in West Virginia are not West Virginia pilots,” Caudill said. “When you’re flying in West Virginia, it’s a whole new ball game. You’ve got to be extra careful with everything you do because it is very unforgiving terrain.”

 The Associated Press contributed to this report.