‘Did you see anything happen?’: Audio provides details on moments before fatal plane crash

Tower audio from a fatal plane crash on Sunday morning near Lancaster Airport in Warwick Township, Lancaster County, shows the pilot had communicated with air traffic control minutes before takeoff.

Just two and a half minutes after the plane was cleared for takeoff, air traffic control started calling out for the pilot.

After he didn’t get a response for over a minute, the person in the tower asked another plane on the runway, “Did you see anything happen? Did you see him depart?”

The response from the other plane is not audible, but the air traffic controller then said, “That’s what I saw too, but now I can’t see him and I can’t find him.”

After another minute and a half, the air traffic controller told the airport’s rescue unit to go to the end of the runway for a “possible aircraft down” at the end of Stauffer Road in a cornfield. The controller delayed the next plane, eventually moving it to a different runway so it didn’t take off over the emergency vehicles.

The full audio can be found on LiveATC.net.

Police confirmed the crash happened in the 500 block of Stauffer Road in Warwick Township at about 8 a.m. The plane went down in a cornfield just east of the runway.

The pilot, who was the only person in the plane, died. His name is being withheld until his family can be notified.

A witness who had been sitting on his porch told WGAL that he did hear an engine, and then “it was just a cloud of black smoke,” David Welden said. “I immediately went in and said to my wife, Jan, ‘Call 911.’”

A plane crashed on takeoff from Lancaster Airport in March, crashing into the parking lot of the Brethren Village in Manheim Township and injuring five people aboard. No one was killed.

Three days ago, a plane with landing gear problems landed safely at the airport after circling.