The Cessna 310 took off from Dayton’s Wright Brother’s Airport. The plane was registered to Miller Aviation and based out of Portland, Ind. David Miller is listed on the company’s website as the Director of Operations.
John Leichty, chief pilot for Miller, confirmed that the plane took off from Dayton at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday and was headed for Pike County Regional Airport, near Pikeville, Ky.
According to WYMT-TV Mountain News in Kentucky, a son-in-law confirmed that Cowherd was the Chief Engineer and CEO at CBC Engineering in Centerville and was frequently in Hazard, Ky. on business. He said that is the reason why Cowherd was in Eastern Kentucky Wednesday.
CBC Engineering’s website shows they have offices in Centerville, Hazard, Lexington and Hurricane, West Virginia.
Representatives from the Federal Aviation Administration were expected to visit the crash site Thursday for their own investigation, according to Paul Maynard, public safety director for the Pikeville Police Department.
According to the Associated Press, the twin-engine plane crashed near the airport just before 1 p.m.
Doug Tackett, director of the Pike County Emergency Management office, said the plane crashed in a mountainous area about a mile south of the airport. He said the debris field stretches southeast all the way down the side of the mountain on which the airport sits.
Leichty said the National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the crash, which may have been weather related as there was low visibility near the airport at the time of the crash. There were no other people inside the plane.
The crash comes just shy of the one year anniversary of the April 1 crash at Wright Brother’s Airport that killed a father and daughter. The single-engine plane piloted by Tom Hausfeld, 50, of Springboro, was headed for Chicago when it crashed just after takeoff killing Hausfled and daughter Kacie, 21, a junior early childhood education major at the University of Dayton.
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