MAYFIELD, Ky. — A Wisconsin pilot was killed on Sunday afternoon, November 8, when the military-style L-39 Albatros jet he was flying crashed in a field just off Spence Chapel Road near the Mayfield-Graves County Airport in western Kentucky, minutes after he had radioed that he was having a problem and was turning back, according to the Graves County Sheriff's Office. His daughter, flying a second L-39 on the same trip, returned to the airport and landed safely.
Source: TMJ4 (Scripps News Group), reporting the Graves County Sheriff's Office
WDRB/WAVE News in Louisville independently reported the same account, citing the sheriff's office: 911 calls about a plane down near Interstate 69 and Kentucky Highway 131 came in at 2:08 p.m., crews found the jet on fire in a field off Spence Chapel Road, and the pilot — the only person on board — had died.
Source: WDRB/WAVE News
A fuel stop on the way home from an airshow
Graves County Sheriff Jon Hayden said the pilot and his daughter, both from Wisconsin, were flying home from an airshow in Mississippi and had stopped at the Mayfield-Graves County Airport to refuel. Each was flying a separate L-39 Albatros, an older military-style jet trainer. After taking off again, the pilot radioed that he was experiencing an issue and was returning to the airport. The jet went down soon afterward in a field off Spence Chapel Road, near Interstate 69 and Kentucky Highway 131, and was engulfed in flames when emergency responders arrived.
Source: Graves County Sheriff Jon Hayden, via TMJ4 and Radio NWTN
The second L-39, flown by the pilot's daughter, returned to the airport and landed without incident, the sheriff's office said. The area around the crash site was cordoned off, and no one was being allowed into the area while investigators worked.
Source: Graves County Sheriff's Office, via Radio NWTN
Pilot not yet named; federal investigators taking over
The pilot's name had not been publicly released as of Sunday evening, pending notification of family, and his daughter was not identified in the initial reporting either. The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board were notified and were responding to the scene to conduct the investigation, Sheriff Hayden said. No cause has been suggested by any official source: the only established fact about the flight's final minutes is the pilot's own radio call saying he had a problem and was turning back.
Source: WDRB/WAVE News, reporting the Graves County Sheriff's Office
The aircraft: a Cold War trainer in civilian hands
The L-39 Albatros is a jet trainer designed and built in Czechoslovakia by Aero Vodochody and flown for decades by air forces in the former Eastern Bloc and beyond. Large numbers later passed into civilian hands, and in the United States L-39s are a familiar sight on the airshow circuit and in private collections. Reporting published on November 9, citing the Aviation Safety Network and Federal Aviation Administration registry records, lists the accident aircraft as an Aero L-39C Albatros, registration N339NA, built in 1983 and registered to Michaels Air Service LLC of Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. Those registry details have not yet been confirmed in an official release from the FAA or the NTSB.
Source: Aviation Safety Network and FAA registry details, as reported November 9
Mayfield is the county seat of Graves County in far western Kentucky, a small city in the state's Jackson Purchase region. Its airport sits between Interstate 69 and farmland outside town — a quiet rural airfield of the kind that airshow pilots crossing the country routinely use for fuel stops, exactly as this father and daughter did on Sunday.
What an NTSB investigation will look for
In a fatal crash of this kind, NTSB investigators typically document the wreckage and the field it came down in, recover any recorded data and radio communications, and examine the engine and airframe for signs of mechanical failure, before issuing a preliminary report — usually within a few weeks — and a final probable-cause finding much later. The pilot's radio call reporting a problem shortly after takeoff, and his attempt to return to the airport, will be central facts in that work. Nothing in the reporting so far establishes what the problem was, and Awaaz Punjab will not speculate about it.
The Graves County Sheriff's Office is expected to release the pilot's name once family has been notified. FAA and NTSB investigators are examining the wreckage off Spence Chapel Road, and the NTSB's preliminary report will be the first official account of the flight's final minutes. The second L-39 landed safely at Mayfield, and its pilot — the dead man's daughter — was not injured.
Awaaz Punjab will update this story when the pilot is formally identified and when the NTSB publishes its preliminary findings.
Source: TMJ4 (Scripps News Group)