A North Carolina pilot died under mysterious circumstances Friday afternoon, authorities said.
Charles Hew Crooks, 23, was one of two people aboard the small 10-person plane Friday, but it landed with only one person in Wake County, North Carolina, WRAL reported.
Authorities say Crooks either jumped or fell from the plane in mid-air without a parachute.
According to the report, the remaining co-pilot made an emergency landing at Raleigh-Durham International Airport after reporting to air traffic control that the plane had lost its right wheel and was taken to the hospital with minor injuries.
Dozens of first responders were at Raleigh-Durham International Airport and several other officers searched the local area and the plane’s flight path for Crooks’ body.
Her body was found later that night, around 7 p.m., in the woods behind a residential area in Fuquay-Varina, about 30 miles from Raleigh-Durham International Airport, the authorities
Police later said the body landed about 30 to 40 feet from a home, and its residents alerted law enforcement officials who were investigating the area.
It’s still unclear whether 23-year-old Charles Hew Crooks fell from the plane or jumped.YouTube / WRALTV
Wake County Chief of Emergency Management Operations Darshan Patel told a group of reporters that residents contacted law enforcement after they “heard something in their backyard.”
During a news conference that night, Fuquay-Varina Police Chief Brandon Medina said Crooks’ body fell at least 3,500 feet. He said it was not immediately clear whether the pilot had died before the crash, but that authorities were continuing to investigate the incident.
Chief Medina would not say whether the investigation is being treated as a criminal investigation, only that the situation was “unique.”
Chief Brandon Medina addressed the media about the incident and investigation on July 29, 2022. Wake County Government/Twitte
“I think it was a first for a lot of us who were working on this incident today,” Patel added.
Crooks recently got his pilot’s license and loved to fly, his family said, WRAL reported.
Asked about the death, Hew Crooks, the dead pilot’s father, said: “We can’t process it right now, I don’t know.”
“He got his private pilot’s license while he was in college. I think he got it when he was a sophomore,” Crooks added. “He said a couple of weeks ago, he wouldn’t trade places with anyone in the world. He loved where he was.”
As for the mysterious details surrounding the death, the father said he “has no idea what happened.”
“We’ll figure it out, I guess,” he concluded.
The surviving co-pilot was released from the hospital after being treated for minor injuries, WRAL reported.
The police chief said investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board are leading the investigation. Federal, state and local authorities are assisting in the investigation.