Arion Lightning similar to accident aircraft. Photo by Arion Aircraft.

A single-engine airplane crashed in Penrose, North Carolina while attempting to land at Transylvania County Airport (22W) on Monday (June 8, 2009) at 4:34 PM EDT.  The two people on board the Arion Aircraft Lightning (N130DS) died in the accident.

According to witnesses, Duane Sorenson and Richard Norton had just departed the airport when it appears they attempted to return.  As it was coming back to land, the plane clipped a poplar tree a half mile west of the airport and crashed into a private property’s access road.  It is unknown whether something was wrong with the plane, although it is possible the engine failed on the airplane and the pilot was trying to return.  Both occupants were pilots.  Duane Sorenson was the owner of the aircraft, while Richard Norton had taken part in the plane’s original flight tests, including being the pilot in the first flight.  The plane was based in 22W.

While we don’t know what happened yet, if this was an attempt to return with a loss of power, it may have been the wrong move as there are fields available around the airport to land in.  Of course, we don’t know the exact position of the plane at the time an engine failure may have occurred or even if one did.

Image by Velozia Air using Google Earth imagery.

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