An experienced female pilot was killed instantly on April 13 after her plane crashed into a Gem State Processing Plant with a large chimney next to a rural airport in Heyburn, Idaho. As Jack Sylva reports for tdpelmedia.com, Brittney Infanger, 30, was flying UPS packages from Salt Lake City, Utah, to Burley, Idaho, when the tragedy took place last week.
Brittney, described as a ‘well-respected pilot beyond her years,’ had more than 11 years of flying experience around Utah and Idaho.
Her distraught father, Jim Bob Infanger, has said Brittney knew the area well and flew to Burley International Airport all the time. He blamed a hazardous chimney on the Gem State Processing Plant for the deadly crash – and called for authorities to close the nearby landing strip.
‘There’s a 60-foot chimney sticking out of the of the food processing plant – no lights on it, dead center – straight across the runway. So whenever you come in, you have to fly over the top of this and drop down,’ Jim Bob told local news outlet EastIdahonews.com. ‘The airport needs to be closed, period,’ Jim Bob said in the aftermath of the accident.
The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board have launched an investigation into the crash.
Source: tdpelmedia.com. Read the full story here
Photo: Courtesy Instagram via tdpelmedia.com
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