Crash fatal to pilot of small plane to pilot of small plane
Fla. man was spraying near Randolph Lake
Three Maryland State Police troopers survey the site where an airplane
spraying for gypsy moths crashed just below the Jennings Randolph Lake dam
Sunday, killing the pilot, Kenneth Edward Yegella, 57, of Florida.
Alison Bunting
Times-News Staffwriter
SWANTON — The pilot of a small plane spraying for gypsy moths Sunday afternoon was killed when his aircraft hit power lines, causing the plane to crash into the rocks just below the dam at Jennings Randolph Lake.
Kenneth Edward Yegella, 57, of Ymatila, Fla., was operating a 1999 Ayers Corp. Model S2R-G1O, according to Sgt. James Hare of the Maryland State Police McHenry Barrack.
Yegella was working for Maurice Flying Service, a Lake View, Mich., company contracted to spray the area for gypsy moths. There was at least one other plane spraying in the area, and possibly two.
“There were two of them flying together, really low,” said Kathy Bevers, emergency medical services officer and firefighter for Bloomington Fire Company. The second airplane was seen just as Bevers and her husband, assistant chief Danny Bevers, drove to the area.
“In fact, he flew over even when we were arriving on the scene,” she said.
The plane apparently had completely burned before firefighters arrived.
“It was just mangled into rocks on the side of the hill and it had burned. You could see where he came in. He dug up the dirt, and then hit a big bunch of rocks on the hillside. It looks like it was probably the fuel and the spray that caused the plane to burn,” she said.
Bevers said the area was too rugged for fire trucks to get to the scene. “There’s no road that actually goes in there. It’s at the bottom of the flood gates,” she said.
“This was actually where Chestnut Road and Walnut Bottom Road comes together, and you drop down on the other side of the dam at the floodgates — if the floodgates had been open he would have been in the water.
“They said the hatchery is down in there. It was up in the Maryland side,” she said, adding that some local people used to call the area Little Egypt. The Associated Press reported that pieces of the aircraft were strewn all over the crash site, indicating that the plane may have hit some boulders on impact, according to officials.
Two different sources told the Times-News a piece of the plane’s wreckage was spotted in the North Branch of the Potomac River 300 to 400 yards below the crash site.
“When we left up there, Trooper 5 had flown around and they did find a piece of the plane in the water,” said Bevers.
Jason Oates, line service man whose jobs include fueling planes as well as guarding planes, said three planes had taken off from the Greater Cumberland Regional Airport Sunday for the purpose of spraying for gypsy moths. The planes come in and out of the airport to refuel and reload, he said.
A park ranger at Jennings Randolph Lake said he saw the plane disappear below the tree line and then saw smoke, according to the Associated Press. Mark Tucci, head dam operator at Jennings Randolph Lake, said officials there are offering no comment, except that the incident is currently under investigation by Maryland State Police.
Charles Welch, firefighter from the Elk District Volunteer Fire Company also was at the scene.
“A mangled mess is about all I seen. It hit the embankment. They said it burst into flames. When we got there, there was very little left. It was just fire rubble,” said Welch. Bloomington fire chief Leon Marple was “on top,” but could not see the plane from where he was.
“It was in a rough rocky area, just below the dam, 300 or 400 yards on the Maryland side, between the power line and the dam,” said Marple. The Mineral County Office of Emergency Services got the call at 12:48 p.m., dispatching Elk Garden and Piedmont fire companies, Elk District ambulance, Mineral County Sheriff, Keyser ambulance and West Virginia Division of Natural Resources.
Bloomington and Westernport fire companies were dispatched from Maryland in addition to Tri-Towns Rescue. A Garrett County medical unit also reportedly was at the scene.
The National Transportation Safety Board will survey the scene on Monday, state police said.
Copyright © 2002 Cumberland Times-News
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The airplane Kenny was flying