Five dead including a child after plane crashes and burns on Outer Banks, NC park says

UPDATE: The four adults who died have been identified as: Shashwat Ajit Adhikari, 31, of Silver Spring, Maryland; Jason Ray Campbell, 43, of Southern Pines; Kate McAllister Neely, 39, of Southern Pines and Matthew Arthur Fassnacht, 44, of Marietta, Georgia. The identity of the child was not released.

The original story is below.

Five people died when a single-engine plane crashed and burst into flames near the Wright Brothers National Memorial on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, according to the National Park Service.

A 6-year-old child was among the dead, park officials say.

The Cirrus SR22 went down around 5:55 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 28, in a wooded area adjacent to the memorial’s First Flight Airport, officials said. The airport is about a 200-mile drive east from Raleigh.

“Eyewitnesses reported that the airplane was attempting to land at the airport,” park officials said in a news release.

“Following the crash, a fire ensued that caused the airplane to burn.”

 

The adults have been identified as: Shashwat Ajit Adhikari, 31, of Silver Spring, Maryland; Jason Ray Campbell, 43, of Southern Pines; Kate McAllister Neely, 39, of Southern Pines and Matthew Arthur Fassnacht, 44, of Marietta, Georgia. The identity of the child was not released.

 

The park still had visitors at the time of the crash and among the witnesses was a woman who reported the plane lost altitude too rapidly while trying to land, WVEC said.

 

“At the beginning, I thought he was really high, and all of a sudden, he just went down a little too quick,” Nadia Popruzhenko told the station. “It was too low.”