Updated at 1:43 p.m.
FERRISBURGH—Four people are dead after a private plane crashed in Ferrisburgh on Sunday, according to Vermont State Police.
The four-person, single-engine Piper plane left Connecticut on Sunday morning, arriving in Ferrisburgh for brunch at Basin Harbor, police said in a press release Monday morning. The group is believed to have started flying back to Connecticut around noon Sunday, but “no reports were received indicating an aircraft in distress or that a plane had crashed,” according to police.
Vermont State Police identified the four people as Paul Pelletier, 55, of Columbia, Connecticut; Frank Rodriquez, 88, of Lebanon, Connecticut; Susan Van Ness, 51, of Middletown, Connecticut; and Delilah Van Ness, 15, of Middletown, Connecticut.
“After the plane failed to return to Connecticut as expected, relatives of the occupants reported the situation to the Connecticut State Police and the Middletown (Connecticut) Police Department,” police said. Authorities later used cell phone location data to locate the crash.
State police, the Middlebury Police Department and the Vergennes Fire Department responded to the incident Sunday night, later using a drone to discover the plane in a wooded area near the Basin Harbor air strip around 12:20 a.m. Monday.
A spokesperson for Basin Harbor Resort declined to comment on the incident Monday morning beyond the details already shared by police.
In an interview, Jason Covey, chief of the Middlebury Police Department, said that state police requested the department’s thermal drone to aid in the search Sunday night.
The device was in the air for approximately 18 minutes and captured still, thermal images that located the crash site, Covey said, calling it a “classic case” of the drone’s utility.
The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are leading the ongoing investigation into the crash, according to state police.
In a statement, the NTSB said that the crash occurred under “unknown circumstances one-half mile south of the Basin Harbor Airport.”
An investigator is expected to arrive on the scene Tuesday morning, according to the statement, and the investigation will include flight data, air traffic communications, maintenance records and a review of the three-days prior.
A preliminary report from the NTSB is expected within 30 days.
In an email, Steve Kulm, an FAA spokesperson, said the administration typically releases a preliminary accident report on the following business day after an incident.
Monday morning, no local, state or federal authorities were readily visible near the airstrip. Jim Donovan and Eva Glasgow, who live due east of the site, said they’d not seen or heard any commotion Sunday or Monday. Despite their proximity to the crash, they’d heard about it on the news.
“I walked out in my pajamas. It was as quiet as ever, there was nothing going on,” Donovan said.
Later that morning, they walked from the east to the southern edge of the airstrip and could not see any signs of the incident.
Vergennes Fire Chief Dave DiBiase described to the Addison Independent the “traumatic” scene his team responded to, eventually locating the plane about 120 yards east of the airstrip.
