A 27-year-old man is dead after the crop duster he was piloting crashed Friday morning in southern Colorado’s San Luis Valley, authorities say.
The pilot, Dusty Claunch, of Monte Vista, was pronounced dead at the scene.
The plane went down just before 11 a.m. between the towns of Center and Hooper, south of Colorado 112 in Alamosa County. The aircraft was fully engulfed in flames when first responders arrived at the scene. The fire from the crash ignited a barley field that the crop duster crashed into.
“Dusty had worked for Rio Grande Sheriff’s Office for several years and recently started working for Alamosa County Sheriff’s Office,” the Colorado State Patrol’s bureau in Alamosa said in a news release. “He had taken the summer off to work for a local agricultural company as a pilot but was scheduled to go back with the sheriff’s office this fall.”
The Center and Mosca-Hooper Fire Departments responded and extinguished the fire, according to the Colorado State Patrol.
Allen Kenitzer, spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said Claunch was piloting a S2R Aero Commander Crop Duster, which crashed under unknown circumstances.
The FAA and National Transportation Safety Board will investigate.
