CRASH INVESTIGATION COULD TAKE A YEAR OR MORE

What will most cer­tainly be a lengthy inves­ti­ga­tion is now under­way into that Sat­ur­day plane crash in Williams County that killed a Michi­gan pilot and injured his pas­sen­ger.

The Defi­ance post of the Ohio High­way Patrol and inves­ti­ga­tors from the Fed­eral Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion were on the scene Mon­day fol­low­ing the crash at the Bryan Aero Park.

Accord­ing to the FFA, since the crash resulted in a fatal­ity, the National Trans­porta­tion Safety Board will lead the inves­ti­ga­tion which could take up to a year or more.

62 year old Leslie Dean of Ann Arbor, the pilot of a 2010 self-assembled single-engine High­lander air­craft was killed in the crash. His pas­sen­ger, 51 year old Kent Hyne, also of Ann Arbor, was admit­ted to Mercy St. Vin­cent Med­ical Cen­ter, Toledo but has report­edly since been dis­charged.

Dean was attempt­ing to land on the east-west grass land­ing strip at approx­i­mately 8:30 Sat­ur­day morn­ing when another air­craft was also attempt­ing to land from the oppo­site direc­tion. When the pilots saw each other, they each aborted their land­ings. Dean’s plane lost power and crashed into a corn­field.

The other plane landed safely.

Since 1982, seven planes have crashed in the Bryan area.