20020825028449A

(-23) Inspected aircraft located in a cornfield approximately 500'FT sw of the runway at Petersburg WV. (W99) airport. An eye witness states that she heard the aircraft flying up the valley and that the engine was running then would stop then would start again. The intermittent running of the engine continued until the aircraft was over her property and then quit for good. She watched the aircraft just clear the wires beyond the house then the nose pitched down and the aircraft crashed into the cornfield. She called to her male friend who did not believe that an airplane went down. He then ran to a berm at the beginning of the cornfield and could see the tail of the aircraft sticking up in the air. He ran to the aircraft while his female friend called 911. When he got to the airplane he realized that the pilot was dead. Inspection of the aircraft shows that the aircraft impacted the ground with the right wing and nose. The landing gear was down. I observed that the fuel tank on top of the wing was split open but there was no fuel smell. Brian nuzum of the dept. Of natural resources was also one of the first on the scene and he did not smell any fuel. There was a 10 gal. Tank in thebaggage area that had a very small amount of fuel in it. The fuel that was located in this tank was the color of aviation fuel (blue). The 3 bladed prop did not have damage except to one of the blades, which looks like impact damage when the aircraft folded up around the engine. It would appear that the engine was not producing any power at time of impact. This aircraft was on a flight from mansfield, Ohio to lousia/freeman (lku) airport.