LAKE CLEAR, N.Y. – A federal official says no distress call was made from a small plane that crashed in the AdirondackMountains, killing four people in a fiery wreck.
National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Peter Knudson tells The Associated Press Saturday the pilot’s last transmission, made around 5:50 p.m. Friday, announced he was taking off from Adirondack Regional Airport.
Officials say the Piper PA-46 plane went down a few minutes later the woods about three-quarters of a mile northwest of the airport in Lake Clear. It’s about 50 miles south of the Canadian border.
Knudson says the plane arrived earlier in the day from Rochester and was heading back there when it crashed.
The identities of the dead have not been released.
While the impact and fire destroyed the six-seat civilian plane, it appears the aircraft “came down in a fairly vertical position,” rather than gliding, Franklin County Sheriff Kevin Mulverhill said by phone.
“There’s not a lot left of the aircraft,” and the forest is scorched around it, Mulverhill said. He didn’t know whether the plane was taking off or landing when it went down.
The crash site is half a mile or more into woods, authorities said.
“We drove in on an old logging landing and walked probably three-quarters of a mile to reach the crash,” Franklin County Emergency Services Director Ricky Provost told the Press Republican of Plattsburgh.
The FAA is investigating, and state police said the National Transportation Safety Board was also en route. NTSB spokespeople didn’t immediately respond to messages Saturday morning.
The crash happened little over a year after another small plane crashed while approaching the airport in nearby Lake Placid, killing the pilot and his two passengers, who were his graduate student daughter and a friend of hers.
In March 2013, another small plane went down while approaching the Lake Placid Municipal Airport, but all three men aboard escaped with only minor cuts and bruises.