VIDEO: Two people died after a small plane they were in crashed Monday morning on the median of Interstate 195 in Dartmouth and caught fire.
The plane that took off from New Bedford Regional Airport crashed just after 8 a.m. The victims were identified as Thomas Perkins, 68 and his wife, Agatha Perkins, 66, both of Middletown, Rhode Island.
According to the Bristol County District Attorney’s office, the couple was found in the fuselage with injuries and were pronounced dead at the scene.
A woman who was driving at the time of the crash was also injured as a portion of the plane impacted her car, a silver Hyundai Sonata. She was taken to St. Luke’s Hospital for non-life-threatening injuries and later released.
The woman’s mother-in-law says she had just dropped her husband off at work and was driving home to Fall River when the plane hit her car. “She’s OK. Traumatized but OK,” Kathy Ramos said.
Ramos says a woman who saw her daughter-in-law screaming after the crash pulled over to offer assistance. The woman drove her to the hospital. Video from the scene showed the plane on fire on the median of the highway.
A check of the plane’s tail number in the FAA’s registry indicates that the aircraft is a Socata TBM 700, which is a fixed-wing single-engine turbo-prop. The airplane is owned by Easton Air, LLC, from Middletown, Rhode Island.
Parts of the plane were found in a nearby woodline and the fuselage was found in the median of the interstate. Police said it does not appear that the pilot provided the airport with a flight plan or the number of people aboard the aircraft.
