The weather was deteriorating when a small private plane crashed in a muddy field in upstate New York over the weekend, killing all six people on board, officials said.
Weather conditions were worsening, and the temperature was only just above freezing at the Columbia County Airport Saturday afternoon when the Mitsubishi MU-2B-40 crashed in Copake, National Transportation Safety Board Member Todd Inman said during a news conference on Monday.
The plane was being flown under instrument flight rules — which are used in poor visibility conditions, as opposed to visual flight rules — but it was too soon to say if reduced visibility from weather conditions was to blame for the wreck, officials said.
Albert Nixon, the NTSB’s lead investigator on the case, said the agency is working with the National Weather Service to determine the full weather conditions near the airport that day.
According to officials, the plane missed its approach at the airport and requested instructions to make another approach when air traffic control radar “indicated a low altitude issue.”
“The (air traffic controller) attempted to relay this low altitude alert to the pilot and also tried to contact him three additional times,” Nixon said. “Unfortunately, he was unsuccessful.”
