{Morgantown, West Virginia}...Jim Peters of the Federal Aviation Administration says a pilot was killed when a Beechcraft King Air 90 plane crashed on Chestnut Ridge about 7.5 miles east of Morgantown around 10:00 A.M. Friday morning after it struck two towers, one a West Virginia Public Broadcasting radio tower, near Coopers Rock State Forest. The plane, registered to O.Z. Gas Aviation based out of Lewistown, Montana, departed a privately-owned airport in Tidioute, Pennsylvania and was due to arrive in Nemacolin, Pennsylvania just 15 minutes later. Monongalia County Sheriff Al Kisner says the pilot had dropped off its passengers at Nemacolin Woodlands Resort in western Pennsylvania. The website Flightaware.com showed the plane was flying between airports in Tidioute, Pennsylvania and Farmington, Pennsylvania at about 10,000 feet and 245 knots. Between 9:24 and 9:42 A.M., it dropped to 5,000 feet, and then vanished from radar. Sheriff Kisner says wreckage was in both Monongalia and Preston Counties, and the crash site was about 1.5 square miles. The accident happened just more than a mile from the Sand Spring Campground where campers heard the plane go down. The National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration are investigating.
