ALBANY, Ind. - David Lykins was working with his nephew on a house near Albany, when he heard an odd noise from the sky.
They went outside, looked up and saw a small plane circling a cornfield.
But, as the craft got lower, he said he knew something was wrong. The plane then plummeted into the field, disappearing among the corn and trees.
Lykins and his nephew sprinted toward the plume of smoke marking the spot where the plane went down. Lykins, who arrived shortly after emergency officials, said debris was caught in the trees and littered the area. The aircraft was engulfed in flames, he said.
"Nobody could have survived it," Lykins said.
1st Sgt. Dave Bursten of the Indiana State Police said the pilot, alone in the aircraft, was the only person killed when it plunged to the ground at approximately 12:40 p.m. in Randolph County, about 10 miles northeast of Muncie.
"We're just fortunate the crash was not in a more populated area that could have caused injury or death on the ground," Bursten said.
Air traffic controllers noticed the plane flying erratically and the pilot did not respond to radio communications.
According to the Federal Aviation Administration, the plane was traveling from Traverse City, Mich., to Grand Rapids, Mich., on a post-maintenance flight. The FAA contacted the military to intercept the craft.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command sent two F-16 jet fighters to investigate.
Indiana State Police Sgt. Rod Russell said the F-16 pilots saw that the pilot in the small plane appeared to be slumped over his controls.
The plane was a single-engine M20M Mooney, according to FAA registration records.
Police monitored the flight from the ground, Russell said.
F-16s were still watching the plane when it went into an "uncontrolled spin" near Muncie, the FAA said.
Authorities did not immediately release the pilot's name, but officials said the pilot may have lost consciousness from lack of oxygen while in flight.
Officials said the craft reached an altitude of 23,000 feet at one point - well above the level at which supplemental oxygen is required by Federal Aviation Administration regulations, but within the 25,000-foot operating limit of the plane.
Delaware County Sheriff George Sheridan said he and the Albany town marshall were watching the flight from the ground. They lost sight of the craft, then saw a large pillar of smoke.
A news release from the Indiana State Police said the identity of the pilot would not be released for several days until positive identification is made by the coroner, citing Indiana law. The six-year-old plane is registered to David Eyde of Ada, Mich., though it is not known if he was flying the plane.
The Delaware County area's last plane crash was in 2006 when a student pilot from Indianapolis suffered minor injuries when his plane crashed near the Delaware County Airport.
In 2002, two Cicero residents died after their plane crashed into a cornfield near Daleville.
Bob Culp and Andrea Zeek contributed to this story.
NewsWatch - Sept. 30, 2009 from Ball State Student Media on Vimeo.
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