Small plane crash near rural Maine airport leaves 3 dead


1 photo
Save Story
Leer en español

Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Police and federal authorities were investigating the crash of a small plane in rural Maine that killed three people on Monday after the aircraft departed from Canada.

The twin-engine plane was traveling from Pembroke, Ontario, to Prince Edward Island in Canada. The plane crashed on approach to Greenville Municipal Airport at about 11 a.m., a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration said. A cause for the crash was not immediately determined and was under investigation.

Police did not immediately release the names of those killed in the crash. The FAA was sending an investigator to the scene, they said. The FAA said there were three people on board the plane.

Local police said the FAA has indicated that the plane appeared to be having some kind of difficulty just before it crashed.

"The FAA will investigate and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) will determine the probable cause for the accident," said Jim Peters, an FAA spokesman.

The NTSB said it expected to release more information on the crash on Tuesday. A spokesman for the Greenville Police Department said the bodies had yet to be removed on Monday afternoon because of concerns about the safety of the crash site.

State police said they were assisting local police at the crash site, which was in a grassy field area outside the airport. The plane that crashed was an Aerostar AEST, which is a small propeller aircraft that transports small numbers of people.

Greenville is a town of about 1,600 people located about 150 miles (241 kilometers) north of Portland, in a rural part of the state's interior near Moosehead Lake.

The plane left from Pembroke Airport, which is about 90 miles (145 kilometers) northwest of Ottawa, near the provincial boundary of Ontario and Quebec. It was bound for Charlottetown Airport, which is on the island province of Prince Edward Island in Atlantic Canada.

___

Associated Press reporter Marina Villeneuve contributed to this story in Portland.

Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Photos

Most recent U.S. stories

Related topics

U.S.
Patrick Whittle

    STAY IN THE KNOW

    Get informative articles and interesting stories delivered to your inbox weekly. Subscribe to the KSL.com Trending 5.
    By subscribing, you acknowledge and agree to KSL.com's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

    KSL Weather Forecast