Four adults and a child were killed in the crash of a an almost new Cirrus SR22 at First Flight Airport at the Wright Memorial in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, on Saturday. The FAA said the aircraft was attempting to land when it hit trees beside the runway and caught fire. The aircraft (N1281F) is a 2023 model and was registered in March of 2024 to a company in Franklin, North Carolina.
According to FlightAware, the plane took off from Dare County Regional Airport, seven miles from First Flight Airport, and was only in the air for eight minutes before crashing. FlightAware’s track log shows the plane at 225 feet in altitude and going 83 knots on a heading of 193 degrees, presumably for Runway 21 on its last ADS-B transmission. The runway is only a few feet above sea level. There was a 12 mph wind from the southwest at the closest weather station in Norfolk, Virginia, at the time of the crash. No further details had been released but we’ll update them as they become available.
