FAYETTE COUNTY, TN - Around 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, January 31, 2009, Fayette County residents looked up and saw a small plane making erratic maneuvers in the sky. Moments later, as the plane disappeared below the tree line, witnesses say they heard a loud noise. Calls to 911 quickly started coming in to the Fayette County Sheriff's Department.
"The crash site is not easily visible from the roadway," says Ray Garcia, spokesperson for the sheriff's department. "The plane went down north of Moscow near Price Road south of Watkins. It clipped a tree and crashed in a field and small pond."
Garcia says officials with the FAA arrived on the scene Sunday morning to begin their investigation. They took pictures and prepared preliminary documentation but declined to speculate on a cause of the crash.
The pilot's body was removed Saturday night and sent to the Shelby County Medical Examiner's Office. His name has not been released pending positive identification but investigators confirm he is a FedEx pilot from the Shelby County area. Officials say he was the only person onboard.
He was piloting a 1972 Bellanca Citabria, which aviation experts say is used for aerobatic flying. The wreckage was in the middle of a densely wooded area, roped off and guarded by Fayette County deputies until the NTSB released the scene on Monday, February 2, 2009.
