A 73-year-old man has died from injuries sustained after he crashed a plane that he had just traded for into a tree near a private airstrip in Volusia County.
Charles Alban died of his injuries just before 5 p.m. on Tuesday, November 15, after crashing a small plane while attempting to leave the Blue Ridge Flightpark Airport, a private facility located on Maytown Road in Volusia County.
Alban, who is from Venice, Florida, had just traded planes with another pilot for the plane he was operating, a Taylor Monoplane.
Witnesses say that around 3:35 p.m. on Tuesday, Alban taxied the plane several times to get comfortable with its handling. Once complete, Alban went south on the airstrip and planned to fly home to Venice.
The plane did not appear to climb into the air and suddenly veered left for unknown reasons, hitting a tree. Alban was transported to an area hospital, where he was later pronounced deceased.
Volusia County Sheriff’s Office detectives that responded to the scene advised that preliminarily, nothing appeared suspicious about the aircraft. Authorities searched the runway and did not locate anything that might have caused the crash, according a statement from VCSO.
The Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board are currently investigating the accident.