Plane crash kills three in Palmyra

TAFTON - A small plane crashed in a Pike County housing development Sunday, killing all three people aboard, state police in Blooming Grove said. The dead were identified as Walter Milton Daggett, 46, of Miami, Fla., the pilot; his father Milton Daggett, 76, of Camden, Maine; and Carla Rae McPherson, 52, of Limerick, Maine, the pilot’s sister. The plane came down at 12:50 p.m. about 100 feet from the nearest homes in a wooded area of an undeveloped lot in the White Sands Springs housing development near Lake Wallenpaupack, authorities said. “It started falling from the sky at a 90-degree angle,” said Neal Magnotta, 18, who lives in the house closest to the crash site. The names of the people on board were not immediately released pending notification of their families, state police said. The twin-engine, six-passenger, Piper Seneca III was registered to Double D Aviation of Palmetto Bay, Fla. Federal Aviation Administration officials went to the scene to confirm the crash and activate a National Transportation Safety Board investigative team, which is expected to arrive Monday, agency spokesman Paul Schlamm said. About 1,800 small planes crash every year nationwide, Schlamm said.