New York [US], April 13 : One person died after a plane crashed in a field near the town of Copake, New York, on Saturday, The New York Times reported, citing the Columbia County Sheriff's Office.
Two passengers were onboard the plane, a Mitsubishi MU-2B heading to Columbia County Airport near Hudson, New York, which crashed a little after noon, the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement.
While addressing a news conference on Saturday afternoon, Undersheriff Jacqueline Salvatore said that the aircraft came down near Two Town Road and did not cause damage to any structure. She did not reveal how many people had been killed or if there were any survivors. The two passengers have not been identified yet.
According to the tracking site Flightradar24, a private aircraft of the same model departed from Westchester County Airport in New York's White Plains shortly after 11:30 am, flying north toward Hudson before turning east at about noon. A few minutes later, the plane disappeared from the site near Copake, The New York Times reported.
According to FAA records, the plane was registered to a company based outside Boston. Salvatore said that in addition to the sheriff's officers, personnel from the New York State Police and a local fire department also responded to the incident. She said that law enforcement officials received a 911 call about the crash at around noon.
Salvatore said that snow and moisture on the ground were impacting response efforts. She said, "It's in the middle of a field and it's pretty muddy, so accessibility is difficult." It was not immediately clear what had caused the plane to crash.
She stated that local law enforcement planned to conduct interviews in the neighbourhood to learn more about the incident. According to the aviation agency's statement, the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board are conducting an investigation into the crash, The New York Times reported.
In November last year, a small plane carrying a pilot and four rescue dogs crashed roughly 50 miles west of Copake. In June, five members of a family were killed after a small plane crashed near Binghamton while it was heading from Cooperstown to Georgia.
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