DARTMOUTH, Mass. — A small plane crashed on Highway 195 in Dartmouth on Monday morning, killing a married couple from Rhode Island.
The victims, identified as 68-year-old Thomas Perkins and his 66-year-old wife Agatha Perkins, were the only passengers on the single-engine plane. They took off from New Bedford Regional Airport around 8 a.m. and crashed a few miles east of Reed Road shortly after reaching an altitude of about 1,000 feet.
Tom Kinton, the President of Kinton Aviation Consulting, says a nor’easter is tough for any smaller plane.
“First thing I would look at is the weather,” Kinton said. “It’s always a pilot’s decision to go to the tower, can’t tell them not to go.”
Authorities have not yet determined why the plane went down, and Kinton says investigators have a lot of factors to go through.
“Can’t rule out mechanical failure or something else that put that plane down. Something mechanical could have gone wrong as soon as he rotated,” Kinton said. “Bird strikes could have been a number of things. You have to look at everything.”
Kinton says the flying community is a tight-knit group. People know many others who like to fly, and any crash is devastating for pilots.
“It’s the worst thing that can happen to a pilot and their passenger or passengers is to lose that airplane,” Kinton said. “We lost the two people on board that aircraft, and it’s hard to take.”
Boston 25 News Reporter Michael Raimondi spoke with someone who worked at the airport. They said that they saw the plane taxiing to the runway on Monday morning. He didn’t hear or notice anything unusual with the aircraft.
This worker said he’s seen pilots take off in worse conditions than he witnessed Monday. He added that the jet that crashed was more than capable of flying in these conditions with rain and gusty winds.
Our crew at New Bedford Regional Airport didn’t see any planes landing or taking off for several hours; they were there on Monday. Cape Air cancelled its flights scheduled for Monday morning and afternoon.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.
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