By By Paul Keane
Publisher
A Wyoming man was killed after his experimental aircraft crashed on the property of the Brewton Municipal Airport Friday morning.
Jack Dale Long, 51, of Cheyenne, Wyo., was apparently taking off to perform a traffic pattern when his plane came down in a field on the airport property.
Local law enforcement officials, Whiting Field officials, firefighters and rescue workers were called to the airport at 9:27 a.m. Long was pronounced dead at the scene.
Long was flying a Auto Gyro Plane which is a single-passenger experimental aircraft he built here in Brewton using a kit. He had been undergoing lessons at the airport and staying in Brewton. According to Alan Robinson, the airport's fixed base operator, people from all over come to the airport to take these lessons.
Robinson said that Long was going up to do a traffic pattern. He said Long took off and at some point during the procedure the plane came down.
"He had taxied out and was in the traffic pattern," Robinson said.
Robinson said the plane would have traveled no higher than 600 feet to perform the particular pattern that Long was attempting. But, no one knows how far in the pattern Long actually got.
"We don't really know because no one actually witnessed it," Robinson said.
The Brewton Police Department is continuing its investigation of the accident. The Federal Aviation Administration was called in to assist with the investigation.