Baltimore Sun
(TNS)
The pilot of a twin-engine plane that crashed Tuesday morning into a river near Easton was found dead by responding divers, authorities said.
The pilot, a male who wasn’t immediately identified, was the only person on board the aircraft, officials said Tuesday. He had reported engine failure shortly before the Cessna 402 plunged into the Tred Avon River at about 9:30 a.m., according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
Maryland State Police said Tuesday afternoon that the plane, which appeared to be a flight test aircraft affiliated with a Greenbelt research foundation, had departed from Tipton Airport at about 9 a.m. Investigators believe the plane was heading from the small airport near Fort Meade toward Easton Airport when it crashed into the river.
Witnesses called 911, prompting state police to respond to the crash site near the 6800 block of Travelers Rest Circle in Easton, along with a Coast Guard crew and marine units from several localities along the Chesapeake Bay to search the Talbot County tributary for the pilot.
The plane’s lone occupant was located by Anne Arundel County Fire Department divers, state police said. Emergency personnel declared the pilot dead once he was brought to shore.
State police, who were processing the scene for evidence, said the pilot would be taken to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner for an autopsy. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the crash along with the FAA.
An identical plane registered to a not-for-profit research group was shown stuck at the river in Easton since Tuesday morning on the online flight-following service FlightAware. Though federal investigators would not immediately confirm whether that plane’s registration information matched the plane that crashed, the tracked flight was the exact make and model of aircraft and followed the same itinerary and flight path as police had described.
FAA records show that the plane is registered to the University Research Foundation, which operates a development lab largely focused on experimental prototypes that can be used in aviation. The foundation, which was established at the University of Maryland in 1981 and is headed by a retired Navy officer, stores its flight-testing aircraft at Tipton Airport.
The Greenbelt-based organization, which did not immediately return a request for comment Tuesday, provides a detailed description of the plane on its website. The Cessna aircraft was able to carry a pilot and three other people, and was equipped with work stations that could be used with experimental equipment, according to the online description.
The webpage says the plane was used as a platform for “avionic and remote sensing applications” developed by the foundation’s lab that could be used for “illicit drug surveillance techniques” as well as toxic waste assessment and “other environmental applications” such as atmospheric sampling and surveying bodies of water.
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