CALHOUN, Ga. (AP) – A small plane that crashed in the north Georgia mountains, killing four people on board, was on what was listed as a training flight and broke up in the air after a pilot reported problems, federal investigators said.
A pilot on the Feb. 8 flight from an Atlanta suburb to Nashville, Tennessee told an air traffic controller there was trouble with the autopilot, the National Transportation Safety Board said in a preliminary report released Wednesday. A pilot also reported a problem with a flight instrument that indicates the aircraft’s position relative to the horizon.
The Cessna disappeared from radar about a half hour after it took off around 9:45 a.m. The NTSB report noted that there was light snow in the area.
Crews located the main wreckage of the plane near Calhoun hours later upside down and partially submerged in a creek, according to the report.
Several parts of the plane were in the surrounding woods and not near the main wreckage, “consistent with an inflight breakup,” the investigators said.