Ten Dead in Hendrick Plane Crash

A Hendrick Motorsports plane crashed Sunday on its way to a NASCAR race, killing all 10 people aboard, including the son, brother and two nieces of the owner of one of auto racing’s most successful organizations.

The Beech 200 took off from Concord, N.C., and crashed in the Bull Mountain area seven miles from Martinsville’s Blue Ridge Regional Airport about 12:30 p.m. EDT, said Arlene Murray, spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration.

The dead included Rick Hendrick’s son Ricky; Hendrick’s brother John, the president of the organization; and Randy Dorton, the team’s chief engine builder, said Harry Litten, a spokesman for Moody Funeral Service, where the bodies were being taken. He said state police gave him a list of the people aboard the plane.

It was overcast when the plane went down, but the cause of the crash was not immediately known. A National Transportation Safety Board spokesman said investigators were on their way to the site, which was in rough terrain, and would begin their investigation today.

Hendrick owns the teams of Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Terry Labonte and Brian Vickers, who raced Sunday in the Subway 500 in the Nextel Cup Series at Martinsville Speedway.