A 911 call from federal officials released Tuesday indicates that a young co-pilot who died in an airplane emergency last week jumped from the plane.
“This is from Raleigh airport,” an unnamed Federal Aviation Administration official says on the 13-minute call.
“We have a pilot that was inbound to the field,” the official tells the dispatcher. “His co-pilot jumped out of the aircraft.”
The co-pilot did not have a parachute, the caller says, giving the dispatcher coordinates where the co-pilot may have landed.
The co-pilot, identified as 23-year-old Charles Hew Crooks, was found dead Friday evening in the Sonoma Springs subdivision in Fuquay-Varina.
The call does not indicate why or what preceded Crooks exiting the twin-engine cargo plane.
The CASA C-212 Aviocar, with two licensed pilots on board, had tried landing near a private airport in Raeford early Friday afternoon when the right wheel fell off, The News & Observer previously reported.
The pilot who survived eventually made an emergency landing at Raleigh-Durham International Airport. The name of the pilot has not been released.
In the 911 call, the FAA official expresses shock at what happened.
“He literally said, ‘My (co-)pilot just jumped out,’” the FAA official tells the dispatcher.
The National Transportation Safety Board and FAA will investigate the incident with Fuquay-Varina Police Department’s help, The N&O previously reported. It could take months before their report is released.
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Mark Schultz contributed to this report.
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