William Patrick Moore, Mitchell Jay Zahler Obituary – The two individuals who lost their lives in a plane crash near a residence in Afton, Minnesota, on Saturday have been positively identified. The Ramsey County Medical Examiner’s Office has confirmed the identities of the deceased as William Patrick Moore, 85, from White Bear Lake, and Mitchell Jay Zahler, 68, from Baytown Township.
The tragic incident occurred in a residential neighborhood on the 15000 block of Afton Hills Drive South. Reports of a potential explosion started coming in to Washington County officials around 9:43 a.m. Emergency crews arrived at the scene to find a small aircraft fully engulfed in flames near a home. The aircraft had just taken off from Lake Elmo Airport before the crash occurred.
Witnesses described hearing the engine sputtering before the plane went down. Lisa, a neighbor, recounted, “It did sound like the engine was maybe kind of stalling out, kind of coming and going, like they were trying to put the gas on or something, and then it just kind of completely stopped. When I looked outside of our house, I actually saw a plane in the sky, going straight down. And then a big cloud of black smoke along with the loud crash sound.”
The aircraft involved in the crash has been identified as a Globe GC1 airplane by the National Transportation Safety Board, which is conducting an investigation into the incident. As of the latest update on Monday, the Washington County Sheriff’s Office has stated that the circumstances surrounding the crash, including its cause, are still being investigated.