2008

Captain Willey

David D. Willey, the Cape Air pilot who died in a plane crash in the woods of West Tisbury Friday night, was remembered by family, friends and colleagues yesterday as an expert pilot, an avid learner and a family man with a wry sense of humor. He was 61.

“He was a great pilot, an exemplary human being,” Cape Air founder, chief executive officer and fellow pilot Daniel Wolf said yesterday. “This was a special person and it’s a huge loss for the company. It’s a devastating thing for the family.”

Four people escaped serious injury when a helicopter crashed into the sea off Lake Tashmoo about 2:30 p.m. Sunday.

Police said engine failure was the cause of the crash.

Several private fishing and pleasure boats were on the scene, about 1,000 yards off Tashmoo, within minutes and threw life jackets to the passengers clinging to the upturned chopper.

The occupants were then able to swim the short distance to the boats. It is believed three boats ferried them to shore. All were checked at the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital and quickly released.

2005

Vineyard residents this week mourned the loss of James Rogers of Oak Bluffs, who died when his self-built aircraft crashed shortly after noon Sunday in the Manuel F. Corellus State Forest in West Tisbury.

Mr. Rogers, 55, had just taken off from Runway 6 at the Martha's Vineyard Airport when his Lancair 360 single-engine airplane banked toward Runway 15 and then came down in the nearby state forest.

Acting Vineyard airport manager Sean Flynn said Mr. Rogers did not survive the impact.

The deaf pilot whose single engine airplane crashed last Thursday on a runway at Katama Airfield in Edgartown remained in critical condition yesterday in the intensive care unit at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

The deaf pilot whose single engine airplane crashed last Thursday on a runway at Katama Airfield in Edgartown remained in critical condition yesterday in the intensive care unit at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

2004

The pilot and passenger of a single engine plane apparently escaped serious injury last evening after crashing their four-seater Mooney aircraft into the scrub oak and low brush just a couple hundred yards shy of the approach to runway 15 at the Martha's Vineyard Airport.

Police and ambulance crews from at least four Island towns responded, shortly after 6 p.m., to the scene at the border of the Manuel F. Correllus State Forest and the airport, finding a dismembered plane and two men, both conscious.

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