All four crew members were killed when their plane leased from an Alaska-based company crashed during a test flight in Washington, officials said.
The single-engine plane was engulfed in flames after it crashed in a field around 9:30 a.m. near Harvey Field Airport in Snohomish County on Friday, according to the Federal Aviation Administration and KIRO-TV.
Raisbeck Engineering was leasing the Cessna Grand Caravan 208B EX from Copper Mountain Aviation to collect “baseline aircraft performance data,” according to a statement from Raisbeck’s president, Hal Chrisman.
“The aircraft was in this initial testing phase and had not yet been modified in any way by Raisbeck,” Chrisman said.
Witnesses told KIRO 7 it first seemed as if the pilot of the plane was doing a training exercise or stunt. https://t.co/kzc5gqXjmK
— KIRO 7 (@KIRO7Seattle) November 19, 2022
The crew included “two highly experienced test pilots” who both had over 10,000 flight hours, a flight test director and an instrumentation engineer, according to the statement.
One person saw the plane crash from his kitchen window, KING-TV reported.
“I had just witnessed a plane catastrophe of some sort, this plane is coming down and it comes spiraling down,” Ken Baxter told the news outlet.
The plane crashed into a field in an area with rough terrain, vegetation and irrigation canals that made it “difficult to access,” fire officials told KIRO-TV.
The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the crash.
The medical examiner will identify the four people.