An airplane is missing, with a last known position just south of Charlottesville, CBS-19 reports. After a trio of mayday calls, the plane disappeared from radar around 7:15pm, near Walton Middle School, about five miles south of Charlottesville. Pegasus is searching for wreckage, and Red Hill Road is closed to traffic. The airplane had departed from Lynchburg, thought to be destined for CHO.
We’ve had a few plane crashes in the area in recent years, with mixed outcomes. A 2001 crash at Wintergreen left a plane and a house’s deck destroyed, but the husband and wife in the airplane alive. One month later a Cessna collided with Humpback, killing the lone pilot and sparking a week-long, ten-acre forest fire. Then there was the Bundoran Farm crash in 2006, killing everybody onboard the small craft. Also in 2006 was the Rivanna Farm crash, with the plane’s pilot—the sole person in the plane—dying on impact. Finally, and most notably, was the 1959 crash of Flight 349 on Bucks Elbow, killing 26 people, but miraculously leaving a single survivor.
12:05am Update: WINA reports that the wreckage of the plane was found a couple of hours ago, and reports tentatively that one person is dead. No word on how many people were on board. Folks in the area tell WINA that they heard the crash.
10/25 12:20pm Update: The AP reports that a woman also died in the crash. There’s no word of survivors. Federal investigators are due on the scene today.
10/26 Update: The victims have been identified as Thomas Mahoney and Elizabeth Paris, of Orange. They were flying from Asheville (not Lynchburg).
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