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Plane crash confirmed in Beverly

BEVERLY – A plane carrying a pilot and a passenger Saturday crashed into a retention pond at the former power plant in Beverly, officials said.

The plane was enroute between Indianapolis to Florida and was going to stop at the Mid-Ohio Valley Regional Airport in Wood County, Washington County Sheriff Larry Mincks said.

An Ohio Highway Patrol airplane found debris at the retention pond, a wing, and a visual sighting from a boat launched by the Beverly-Waterford emergency squad found a plane was in the water, Mincks said.

“We believe there is a pilot and another (passenger) on board,” Mincks said Saturday night.

Divers from the Little Hocking were at the scene Saturday night searching the water, Mincks said.

The West Virginia Wing of the Civil Air Patrol reported the airplane was flying from Logansport-Cass County Airport in Indiana, north of Indianapolis, when radar contact was lost at 9:43 a.m. Assistance from the West Virginia Wing was requested by the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center, a release from Lt. Col. Jeffery Schrock, public affairs officer for the West Virginia Wing.

A Civil Air Patrol crew was getting ready for a training sortie and alerted to perform a search of the route from the last known radar position, the release said.

“We were the closest,” Shrock said.

At 2:33 p.m. the Civil Air Patrol crew made a find at the pond of the former plant. The coal-fired power plant was shut down by American Electric Power about two years ago and the property sold to Commercial Liability Partners LLC, redevelopment company from Missouri, which is demolishing the facilities,

Also on scene are units from the Marietta Ohio Fire Department and the Ohio Highway Patrol.

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