Two men are dead after a small plane crash in a field in western New York on Tuesday.
A pilot and his passenger died in the crash and resultant fire.
The incident took place about 10 minutes after the plane had taken off from the Chautauqua County Jamestown Airport around 1:40 p.m., according to Sheriff James Quattrone.
The aircraft is a Cirrus SR22. It has one engine and can accommodate three to four people.
It had stopped at Jamestown to refuel and was on its way back to Canada, where it is based in the city of Oshawa, Ontario, Quattrone said, adding that the plane had previously stopped at an airport in Erie, Pennsylvania, around 11 a.m. before arriving in New York.
The sheriff noted there were no signs of the pilot calling for help, such as a mayday call.
He also noted that the small plane was equipped with an airframe parachute.
A witness, James Mortimer, told The Post-Journal of Jamestown that the plane crashed just seconds after he saw a parachute deploy. “Not even two seconds after it popped the chute it was into the ground,” he told the paper.
The names of the two men were being withheld until authorities notify their relatives, the sheriff said.
He added that the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the fatal incident.
