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11:40 a.m. • 2-12-12

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Second Plane Crashes in Surry County; Pilot Killed


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Elkin airport
Elkin airport

A plane crashed Sunday afternoon about a 30-minute drive from where a Beechcraft King Air C90A went down Friday in Mount Airy, killing six people.

Sunday's crash happened at the Elkin Municipal Airport, southwest of the Mount Airy-Surry/County Airport when the Beechcraft was headed.

Officials said three planes were flying together Sunday when one of them, a Rans RV4, attempted an acrobatic maneuver. That plane hit an embankment and crashed, killing the Greensboro pilot.

Surry County emergency services director John Shelton identified the pilot as 64-year-old Lawrence Darrell Proctor.

The crash was the first reported fatality at the Elkin airport, officials said.

On Friday, the twin-engine King Air crashed as it tried to land in low-lying fog at the Mount Airy/Surry County Airport, killing all six people on board. The plane split in half after falling into a grassy area between two homes at about 11:30 a.m.

Investigators recovered the plane's voice recorder from the wreckage and said it could be days before they make preliminary determinations about what caused the private plane to go down.

National Transportation Safety Board investigator Todd Gunther said investigators didn't believe inflight fire or mechanical-control failure caused the crash.

Six men aboard the plane were headed to a hunting trip in Virginia when the plane crashed.

Officials identified the six victims as Hal Echols, Steve Simpson, 46; Robert Butler, 49; Tony Gunther, 46; Frank Ruggiero, 52, and John Wesley Rakestraw, 50, who was piloting the plane when it took off.

RELATED TOPICS: Surry County, Lawrence Summers

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Structual failure. Just a guess.

The cause of the crash is under investigation?? Might it have something to do with performing an aerobatic maneuver into the ground? Just a guess.

Sounds like there is a great big magnet in Surry County that is pulling planes outta the sky!

That would be a Vans RV4, not Rans.

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