Crash of vintage Soviet military jet claims 2 lives

Written by Associated Press

Monday, 17 December 2012 11:00

An Aero L-29 Delfin jet, used to train Warsaw Pact pilots in the early 1960s. Image by Dmitry A. Mottl. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

DALLAS (AP) – Family and friends are mourning the death of a 30-year-old Dallas-area man who won the chance to fly in a plane that crashed in North Texas.

A family friend of Fisher Floyd tells The Dallas Morning News that Floyd won at an auction the chance to fly in a single-engine L-29 Delfin plane with 77-year-old Noell Rather, an experienced former commercial pilot.

Neither Floyd nor Rather survived the crash Thursday morning in Kaufman County near Scurry, about 30 miles southeast of Dallas.

The newspaper reports Floyd attended high school in Highland Park, an enclave within Dallas' city limits. He has two young sons, ages 1 and 2.

A friend of Rather's says he spent years restoring the Soviet-era plane he was flying Thursday.

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Information from: The Dallas Morning News, http://www.dallasnews.com

AP-WF-12-14-12 1314GMT

ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE

An Aero L-29 Delfin jet, used to train Warsaw Pact pilots in the early 1960s. Image by Dmitry A. Mottl. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Last Updated on Monday, 17 December 2012 11:19