Float Plane Crash Kills Two
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PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) – A small float plane crashed into the Willamette River in Oregon, killing two people, including an accomplished flight instructor, authorities said.
David Howard Wiley, 80, a former National Seaplane Pilot of the Year, was one of the two men who died shortly before noon Saturday when the vintage 1941 Taylorcraft float plane crashed just north of Willamette Falls.
The identity of the other man was being withheld pending notification of his family.
Witnesses said the two-passenger, single-engine plane took off from the river, rose about 75 feet, wobbled in the air and then began a steep turn to the left before the left wing broke off.
Clackamas County sheriff’s spokesman Jim Strovink said people who saw the crash told him the plane took off in an “unstable fashion.”
It was unclear if Wiley, a certified instructor and mechanic who runs Wiley’s Seaplanes, was piloting the plane.
In 2000, Wiley, an aviation safety counselor for the Portland Flight Standards Division Office, was designated a master certified flight instructor by the National Association of Flight Instructors. He was named National Seaplane Pilot of the Year in 1999.
The Federal Aviation Administration was investigating.
