Flight Instructor And Student Identified In Mansfield Plane Crash
MANSFIELD (CBS) -- A small plane crashed at the Mansfield Municipal Airport on Saturday and killed two people on impact.
A flight instructor and a student - the only two people on board - were killed. The pilot was identified as Sydney Miti, 31, of Waltham, and the student was identified as Julian Lattermann, 18, of Dover.
Midi's mother was grieved as she spoke of her son Saturday night. "Sydney - what can I say about my son? What can I say? He was such a warm character, so friendly, very loving. He would always check on me always, call, 'Mommy I've been calling, where are you? Are you ok?' He was so loving."
At about 12:30 p.m., a radio transmission from the plane indicated a missed approach. Moments later, the Cessna 172 flew past the Municipal Airport Administration Building and crashed into the turf landing area.
The Cessna landed nose first, and the propeller was mangled. Police, the fire department and other first responders responded to the scene around 12:36 p.m.
"We had two people on board – both fatalities. There was no fire. The foam is used to suppress vapors so we can work. We needed to extricate the two victims, which we have done," said Mansfield Fire Chief Neal Boldrighini.
According to Mansfield Deputy Police Chief Michael Ellsworth, there were no distress calls. "About 11:30, around that time, they left the Norwood airport, an instructor pilot and his student, and sometime around 12:30 we received an emergency call here that there'd been an accident."
"I thought it was like a little skid off the runway or something, but it was nothing like that. It looks like it came right out of the sky," said a man who lives near the airport.
The FAA will investigate, and the National Transportation Safety Board will try to figure out the cause of the crash.
