SUNDRE, Alberta, Aug. 11 (UPI) -- A small plane built from a kit broke up over a rural part of Alberta, killing the pilot and a passenger.
"There was an in-flight breakup of the aircraft," John Lee, an investigator with the federal Transportation Safety Board, told the Calgary Herald. "You could estimate 50 per cent of the aircraft had fallen apart in the sky."
The pilot was flying from Grande Prairie to Calgary at the time of the crash. Lee said the cabin, engine and part of a wing came down in a field while the rest of the plane was scattered over miles of scrub.
Police in Sundre, about 16 miles from the crash site, said the plane was a Lancair IV-P, a four-seat, single-engine turbo propeller, and had been built from a kit supplied by Lancair International, a Redmond, Ore., company.
Lee said pilot error, thunderstorms in the area, turbulence and the condition of the aircraft could all have contributed to the crash.
