June 08--Two people were killed when a small plane crashed in a farm field four miles west of Great Bend late Sunday morning.
Master Trooper James Robinson of the Kansas Highway Patrol said that calls reporting the crash began coming in to Barton County EMS at 11:33 a.m. Robinson and Barton County sheriff's officers arrived at the crash site at 400 NW 40th shortly thereafter and found two men in the aircraft, a fixed-wing Schrieber P-70.
The Barton County coroner pronounced both men dead at the scene. Neither man's identity had been released late Sunday afternoon. But Robinson said one of the men, age 49, was from Great Bend, and the other, age 24, was from Utah. Authorities were still trying to reach the second man's next of kin.
Robinson said the plane had taken off from the Great Bend airport but he didn't know if the pilot had filed a flight plan with a destination. He said the plane did not burn after crashing. The cause of the crash was not known. Robinson said a representative from the Federal Aviation Administration was en route. The Highway Patrol's Critical Accident Response team was mapping the scene of the crash. He said they would know later whether the National Transportation Safety Administration would investigate.
Copyright 2014 - The Hutchinson News, Kan.
