The pilot of a small glider plane has died after crashing near an airport in southern Connecticut, state police announced Saturday.
Bradley Daar, 70, of Clinton, was piloting a single-engine ultralight glider on Friday afternoon when the aircraft crashed into the woods in the Town of Deep River, roughly 35 miles east of New Haven.
Officials responded to an area of Cedar Lake Road, also known as Route 145, at around 4:15 p.m. and located the victim, later identified as Daar. He was transported via helicopter to a nearby hospital where he was declared dead, state police said.
A witness told local station WTNH that he saw an ultralight flying around when he “noticed [the pilot] was kind of struggling to maintain altitude.”
As Daar went to land, “he did what is known as a ‘go-round,’ [which is] a very common maneuver when you think there’s not enough runway or you’re unstabilized on the approach, [then] you go around to circle back,” the witness, Douglas Griswold, said. “It was around then when he went down.”
The Wild Sky GOAT Weight-Shift-Control aircraft crashed just off the departure end of runway 17 at Chester Airport, CT Insider reported, citing a spokesperson for the National Transportation Safety Board.
Connecticut State Police are handling the investigation and the NTSB, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Connecticut Airport Authority have been notified of the incident, state troopers said.