3 Sailors Killed, 1 Hurt in Crash of Light Plane
Three men were killed and another critically injured after a light aircraft crashed in a sparsely populated area of the desert near here Saturday night.
The four were off-duty sailors assigned to Attack Squadron 165 at the Whidbey Island Naval Air Station in Washington. The squadron is training at Fallon Naval Air Station, 50 miles south of the crash site.
The victims’ names were withheld pending notification of family members.
Anne McMillin, spokeswoman for the Fallon base, said that the four rented a Cessna aircraft from Fallon Municipal Airport and that the plane went down at 8:20 p.m. a mile northeast of Lovelock. She said she was unsure of their destination.
Two of the four sailors were pronounced dead at the scene and two were flown by air ambulance to Washoe Medical Center in Reno. One of them died Sunday morning and the other remained in critical condition.
Pershing County Sheriff’s Deputy Mark McGarry said the plane hit a power line before it crashed in open range land. It is uncertain whether the plane experienced mechanical failure before it hit the power line, he said.
Federal Aviation Administration officials arrived at the crash scene Sunday morning to launch an investigation into the cause of the crash.
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