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The pilot of a stunt plane that crashed in New Orleans last week, killing beloved news anchor Nancy Parker, reported problems with the aircraft just moments after taking off from Lakefront Airport,the National Transportation Safety Board announced on Saturday.
Parker, a 53-year-old journalist with Fox affiliate WVUE for 23 years, was working on a story, and Franklin J.P. Augustus piloted the plane when the aircraft wentdown in a crash that killed them both, the outlet reported.
“Shortly after take-off, the pilot radioed the controller in the Lakefront Airport tower and indicated that he was having problems, which were not specified,” the NTSB said in the statement. “The controller gave the pilot a clearance to return to the airport.”
Witnesses said the plane looked like it was experiencing engine problems shortly after take-off, according to the NTSB. The nose of the plane pointed down before the aircraft crashed, the NTSB said.
A fire broke out after the plane went down and consumed most of the wreckage, the agency reported. The crash is under investigation, and the NTSB said in the statement that it will publish a preliminary report “within the next few weeks.”
“Nancy was a part of the FOX 8 family for the last 23 years, she put her heart and soul into her work, covering thousands of stories and touching countless lives,” Ingram added. “She made a difference in the lives of those she reported on. She will be sorely missed, and her absence creates a void that cannot be filled.”
“I should’ve been on that plane,” he wrote. “She was our road map, our compass, our guiding light. I’m lost without my wife.”
Severaljournalists and local residentsmourned the death, remembering Parker as “a cornerstone to New Orleans news,” a reporter who told “stories that mattered to the people of our state.”
City Council President Helena Moreno called Parker’s death a “tremendous loss.”
source: people.com
