Patty McQuillan, spokeswoman for the state Department of Crime Control and Public Safety, said emergency officials reported that the pilot said he had icing on the wings. The plane disappeared from radar and lost radio contact, she said.
The accident occurred about 1:30 p.m. Thursday, said Kathleen Bergen, spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration in Atlanta. The plane crashed in a farm field several hundred feet from a residential area near Snow Hill, located about 20 miles southwest of Greenville.
It was headed from Page Field in Fort Myers, Fla., to Hartford-Brainard Airport in Connecticut, Bergen said.
The FAA said the crash involved an experimental aircraft. The agency described the aircraft as a Lancair model IV-P, homebuilt in 2003, registered to Al Desalvatore.
Both the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the crash, Bergen said. The Civil Air Patrol also was called because the incident was first reported as a missing aircraft, McQuillan said.
