Police say a husband and wife were killed overnight when a Piper Arrow PA-28R plane crashed at Brantford Municipal Airport.
Late Tuesday afternoon, OPP identified the deceased as 81-year-old Mildred Chamberlain and her husband, 76-year-old Ronald Chamberlain, from Brampton.
Police were called into the airport early Tuesday morning for reports of a plane crash.
“The County of Brant OPP were called just before 8 a.m. this morning in response to a plane crash that had been located at the Brantford County Municipal Airport,” OPP Const. Ken Johnston told 980 CFPL.
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Officers arrived at the scene along with members of the Brant Fire Service and County of Brant Ambulance Service, to discover that a plane had crashed on airport property.
“We found that a Piper Arrow plane had crashed on the property at the airport sometime overnight,” Johnston said.
A spokesperson for the city of Brantford, which operates the airport, said that the plane was familiar to staff.
“Our staff upon arriving upon the scene recognized the aircraft,” Maria Visocchi said. “So the plane had used the airport before.”
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The airport, which is registered, is not staffed overnight.
“It’s staffed from dawn until dusk every day of the year except for Christmas, “ Visocchi explained.
Johnston said it is still too early to tell what may have caused the crash.
“We don’t know if they were taking off. We don’t know if they were landing. We don’t know if there were any other medical-related issues,” Johnston explained. “There’s just a lot of other facets for everyone to look into before we can determine what caused this.”
Visocchi says the lights on the runway are able to be activated overnight, it is unclear if the pilot did so.
“We don’t know whether the lighting was activated,” Visocchi said.
Police say both the pilot and passenger were killed in the incident.
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OPP said that the Transportation Safety Board (TSB) will be in charge of looking into the incident.
The TSB says it was also notified about the accident at 8 a.m..
“We have deployed two investigators on site,” TSB spokesperson Alex Fournier said.
Police are asking anyone with information about the incident to call 1-888-310-1122 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.
— With files from 980 CFPL’s Liny Lamberink