Turtle on Runway May Have Caused Deadly Crash

A crash that killed two people at Sugar Valley Airport near Mocksville, North Carolina, earlier this month may have been caused by an effort to avoid a turtle. According to a National Transportation Safety Board preliminary report on the June 3 crash, a UNICOM operator advised a pilot preparing to land a vintage airplane that there was a turtle on the runway. Investigators said the pilot landed 1,400 feet down the 2,424-foot runway and lifted a wheel to avoid the turtle.

• "A man cutting the grass at the end of runway 2 reported that he saw the turtle on the runway and the pilot raised the right wheel to avoid the turtle," the report states, per WGHP. "After that, the wings began to rock back and forth. Then the airplane took off again, but he lost site (sic) of the airplane when it passed behind a hangar. The airplane disappeared just over the trees on the northeast side of the runway and then he heard a loud crash and saw smoke."

The crash involved a 1946 Stinson 108 Voyager, ABC45 reports. Investigators said the plane crashed into woods around 255 feet north of the runway and caught fire. The pilot and a passenger were killed. Another passenger was seriously injured, the NTSB said. (More plane crash stories.)