Plane crash on foggy morning kills 3

NORFOLK, Va. — Three people died Wednesday when a small plane crashed in foggy weather at Norfolk Botanical Garden just shy of the city's airport, according to Virginia State Police.

The airplane's owner, James Beauchamp of Corapeake, N.C., said a friend, Michael Buxton of Portsmouth, Va., was piloting the 1975 Mooney M20F. Buxton and two friends were on their way home from Key West, Fla., where Buxton kept a sailboat.

At 4:30 a.m. ET, the control tower at Norfolk International Airport lost contact with the plane that was one to two miles outside the airport at the time, said Petty Officer 3rd Class Nate Littlejohn of the U.S. Coast Guard.

The four-seat plane was attempting to land on Runway 23, Battalion Chief Julian Williamson said. The runway is one of two at the airport and less than a half mile southeast of the crash site.

"At approximately 1.5 miles out, the pilot made a transmission to the tower," he said. "This would be the last communication the tower had with the pilot."

He did not disclose what the pilot said.

Visibility along the coast was at less than a mile when the plane went missing, according to Craig Moeller, WVEC-TV meteorologist.

The plane's wreckage was located at about 7:30 a.m. in a wooded area at north end of the 155-acre the botanical garden, which is almost surrounded by Lake Whitehurst. State police Sgt. Michelle Anaya confirmed two fatalities a little more than an hour later and news of a third death was released later that morning.

She did not release the names of the victims because family members have not been notified.

Buxton, originally from Buffalo, N.Y., was a clinical psychologist who ran a practice in Virginia Beach. He was also a plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging a state deal to allow a private company to charge tolls on tunnels between Portsmouth and Norfolk as part of a construction project to add tunnel capacity.

"He got involved early and he encouraged other people to get involved," said Terry Hanaher, one of the leaders of Citizens for Accountability that led opposition against the toll project. "He donated financially. He donated time. He's very politically active."

Hanaher said she and Buxton shared different political views — he was conservative and she's liberal — but they got to know each other through the fights against tolls.

People who live in the area near the botanical garden said they did not hear the crash.

"We are still in the process of investigating the wreckage," said Lt. Curtis Hardison of Virginia State Police. The plane is intact.

The plane stopped for refueling at Palatka Municipal Airport about 60 miles south of Jacksonville, Fla., and took off again just before midnight Tuesday. It was scheduled to arrive at Suffolk Executive Airport, about 25 miles southwest of Norfolk, before 3:30 a.m. but was still in the air at 4:12 a.m., according to FlightAware.

Its flight was to be about 570 miles, but the flight tracker shows that the plane overshot its destination, turned around to go back and then proceeded to Norfolk's airport, where it headed toward Runway 23, didn't land and made a loop to try the approach again. That's where its route ends.

"We would not know if someone is coming," said Kent Marshall, the Suffolk airport's manager. The general aviation airport has no control tower of its own and comes under the jurisdiction of Norfolk's airport.

Typically, a pilot would try to land in Suffolk and then make a request to land in Norfolk if the weather didn't cooperate, he said.

Sunrise was at 6:30 a.m., and both airports have beacons lit from sunset to sunrise to identify the path to the runway. After the crash, the beacons at Norfolk were tested and checked out OK, said Robert Bowen, the airport's deputy executive director.

Beauchamp said his plane was in good mechanical condition and called Buxton "a very conscientious, qualified pilot." The aircraft's FAA license was issued in 2010 and was good through 2018.

Troopers, the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating, FAA spokesman Jim Peters said. The NTSB will release a preliminary report in 10 days and a full accident report in nine to 12 months.

Contributing: The Associated Press