Aug 8, 2009 11:10 pm US/Eastern
Carroll County Plane Crash Leaves 2 Dead
TANEYTOWN, Md. (WJZ) ―
-
-
Maryland State Police say two people are dead after their small airplane crashed in Carroll County.
CBS
A plane crash in Carroll County killed two Marylanders. Mike Hellgren spoke with the pilot's family.
Robert Kociemba was piloting his beloved plane, a Golden Circle Air T-Bird II, when--right after taking off--it crashed into a field near the Keymar Airpark in Carroll County, killing him and his passenger, Letty Williams, who was from Edgewater.
"I lost my brother and a good friend," said Mike Kociemba, Robert's brother.
Mike spoke first to
WJZ about the deaths.
"It was quite a shock when police called today," he said.
Kociemba says Robert was an experienced pilot, a retired Naval aviator, who owned that plane for four years.
"He did love the airplane. He loved to fly in it and he loved to take people up for rides in it," he said.
And he was familiar with the area, flying there three times a week.
"It looks to me that they would have died instantly, which I hope is the case," he said.
"No explosion, no scattering of anything. It just went into the ground," said Lou Jordan, PIO Union Bridge Fire Company. "This is just one of those instances where nothing could be done."
Investigators, including those from the FAA and Maryland State Police, combed the scene.
"It's not for us to speculate on what may have caused this. That's for the experts," said Greg Shipley, Maryland State Police.
The airpark is used by many pilots flying ultralight planes.
"We were able to see it was somebody's plane down and they didn't make it. It's devastating because they're people that you know," said John Gorecki.
The pilot's family hopes authorities will find out what happened, giving them closure after such a painful loss.
"Both of them were great people and I hope that they're in a better place now," Kociemba said.
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
Short Subjects: Hollywood's Tiny Stars
Click to enlarge
Click to enlarge
Stumble It!
Reporting
Comments