Saturday’s crash of a twin-engine Cessna 421C into a row of Fairview, Oregon, homes killed three people, Gresham Fire Chief Scott Lewis confirmed Sunday.
The pilot, a single passenger and a person in one of the homes on Northeast Heartwood Circle died, Lewis said in a Facebook post. Authorities have not released their names.
The crash happened around 10:20 a.m. and started a fire that spread to four townhouses.
The cause of the crash remains under investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board, the federal agency announced on social media Saturday.
Air traffic recordings collected by LiveATC.net show that a controller at the nearby Troutdale Airport were communicating with a plane that reported an issue shortly before the crash, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported Saturday.
“Having some ... problems,” a pilot says to a controller in the recording. “This is a test flight.” It’s unclear if the pilot said “handling problems” or “hailing problems.”
A little over a minute later, a person can be heard saying, “That aircraft went down.”
Three minutes later the recording captured the controller’s voice: “I’ve just got an airplane crash.”
©2024 Advance Local Media LLC. Visit oregonlive.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
