Multiple Dead in Plane Crash Near Wright Brothers Memorial

Multiple people were killed Saturday in a single-engine plane crash near a North Carolina monument dedicated to the Wright brothers, the pioneering American inventors credited with building the world’s first successful airplane. The aircraft—which officials said was trying to land at the nearby First Flight Airport—went down around 5 p.m. on Saturday close to the Wright Brothers National Memorial in Outer Banks, according to the National Park Service. The memorial park had visitors at the time and several witnessed the crash. “At the beginning, I thought he was really high, and all of a sudden, he just went down a little too quick,” Nadia Popruzhenko, who saw the plane lose altitude, told local news network WVEC. “It was too low.” According to officials, the plane caught fire after it crashed, and local fire departments extinguished the flames. The airport is closed until further notice while the Wright Memorial shut down on Sunday. The National Transportation Safety Board has been called on to investigate the incident and the Federal Aviation Administration was informed. Outer Banks is about 200 miles east of Raleigh, North Carolina’s second-largest city.

Read it at WVEC

Read more at The Daily Beast.