LITTLE ROCK — A small aircraft crashed during takeoff Friday morning in southwest Arkansas, killing the pilot, state and federal officials said.
The plane, a Beechcraft BE-55, crashed about 8:30 a.m. into a ditch adjacent to a runway at J. Lynn Helms Sevier County Airport, 3 miles west of De Queen off U.S. 70, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Lynn Lunsford said.
The pilot, who was the only person aboard, was identified as Timothy Stanley, 52, of Broussard, La., said Bill Sadler, a spokesman for the Arkansas State Police.
Stanley had landed in De Queen on Thursday because of severe weather and was on his way to Bixby, Okla., south of Tulsa, on Friday morning when he crashed, Sadler said. Officials didn’t yet know where he had taken off from Thursday or the reason for the flight, Sadler said.
FlightAware.com, an Internet site that tracks flights, didn’t show that a flight plan was filed for the aircraft on Thursday or Friday, but filing flight plans isn’t always required.
The fixed-wing, twin-engine aircraft was registered to Rose Resources Oil and Gas Inc., in Tulsa, according to the FAA records. Sadler said troopers who were called to assist rescue crews at the crash site didn’t know Stanley’s relationship with the company.
Lunsford declined to comment when asked about the company, citing ongoing FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board investigations into the cause of the crash.
A working phone number for the company wasn’t immediately located. A publicly listed number for the company had been disconnected.
Troopers were told that Stanley was either employed or “had some connection” with Land Energy Transport, a trucking company also listing a Tulsa address, Sadler said. No one answered at a publicly listed number for Land Energy Transport on Friday evening.
Messages left for Sevier County Sheriff Monte Stringfellow, who also responded to the crash, weren’t immediately returned.
Arkansas, Pages 14 on 04/16/2011