Published: December 29, 2006 09:18 pm         

Ultralight crash kills pilot; third crash in area in week

JASPER — The pilot of an ultralight aircraft was killed when he crashed near the Marion County Airport, marking the third fatal plane crash in a week in southeastern Tennessee.

Seth Benjamin Josey, 36, of Duluth, Ga., died on impact when he crashed his Northwind Apache aircraft about 2:30 p.m. on Thursday, authorities said.

Witnesses said the plane lost power as it was coming over some trees and nosed-dived into the ground. Josey had a student license and was authorized to fly solo.

"He was well trained," said Michael Theeke, the pilot's flight instructor at the airport. "I'm still pretty shaken about it."

On Tuesday, two people were killed and two were seriously injured when their single-engine plane crashed about two miles from the airport.

Pilot Michael Burlingham, 51, and Gertrude Rutter, 84, both of Port St. Lucie, Fla., died on impact. Burlingham's wife, Carol Burlingham, 51, and family friend Tom Ebel, 26, of Macatawa, Mich., remained in critical condition Friday at Erlanger Medical Center in Chattanooga.

Tim Sorensen, an investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board, said ice was found on the wings of the Burlinghams' plane, but it was too early to say if that caused the crash. Burlingham had radioed air traffic control in Memphis about the problem.

The Burlingham plane was bound from Zeeland, Mich., to Winchester, Tenn., before being diverted to Chattanooga's Lovell Field Airport.

Those accidents followed the crash of another single-engine plane around 9:30 p.m. on Dec. 22 in a wooded residential area near Chattanooga, less than 30 miles east of Jasper. The crash killed four members of a Davie, Fla., family — pilot Nelson McPherson, 43; his wife Debbie McPherson, 43; and daughters Danielle McPherson, 19, and Kayla McPherson, 13.

The McPhersons were flying from Gainesville, Fla., to Chattanooga, where relatives were expecting them. A preliminary report by the NTSB said McPherson told Chattanooga air controllers "that he was disoriented" during his landing approach.

The controllers advised McPherson to cancel the landing attempt and climb back to 3,000 feet elevation. "The pilot responded that he was climbing" before the radio transmissions ended, the NTSB report said.

A witness, who lived about a quarter mile from the accident site, told the NTSB that he heard the airplane from his bedroom. He heard the engine revving up, then the sounds of it crashing through trees behind his house. The wreckage was removed Thursday.

NTSB spokesman Ted Lopatkiewicz said Friday that final reports on the two private plane crashes could take several months to prepare. The NTSB would be making no formal investigation into the ultralight crash because it was an unregistered aircraft, like most ultralights.