Two Arkansas National Guardsmen killed Sunday in an airplane crash at the Camden Municipal Airport, Rufus Feron Brown and Justin Levon Ashley, had stopped by Gaston’s White River Resort prior to their departure for Camden. According to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Nick Price, a friend of both men, said the two had been practicing cross-country flying Sunday. They had stopped at Gaston’s White River Resort at Lakeview in Baxter County at 3:47 p.m. Sunday to eat, Brown posted on his Facebook page. The pair were trained to fly helicopters, officials said Tuesday.
42-year-old Brown, of Arkadelphia, and 31-year-old Ashley, of North Little Rock, died when Brown’s Beechcraft C35 Bonanza that he had named “Nanner” crashed just after taking off from the airport at 6:45 p.m.
Both men held the rank of chief warrant officer 2 and were trained to fly UH-60 helicopters with Bravo Company of the 2-285th Aviation Helicopter Assault Regiment at Camp Robinson in North Little Rock, said Maj. William Phillips, a spokesman for the Arkansas National Guard.
Brown also was a helicopter maintenance test pilot.
Both were in an off-duty status Sunday and were not performing in a military function, Phillips said.
They took off from Gaston’s heading south, and the plane stopped at the Camden airport to refuel at about 6:30 p.m. Fuel is cheaper at the Camden airport than elsewhere in central Arkansas, and it is a common practice for pilots to stop there, said Capt. Adam LaDuke of the Ouachita County sheriff’s office.
Witnesses said the plane taxied to the northern end of the runway, turned around and took off. It suddenly veered to the left and crashed into a grassy area and burst into flames.
LaDuke said surveillance video taken from a business near the airport captured the crash.
“The plane took off and then just veered and hit,” LaDuke said. “It burst into an intense fireball.
“It appears there was some kind of mechanical failure.”
Federal Aviation Administration investigators were at the airport Monday and placed the plane’s wreckage onto a flat-bed trailer. They left later that night, LaDuke said. The agency has not yet determined the cause of the crash.
The Ouachita County sheriff’s office would not confirm the identities of the two Tuesday because it is waiting for state Crime Laboratory autopsies to be conducted before releasing the names, LaDuke said.
Brown had been with the National Guard since 2001 and had served in Kuwait and Iraq.
Ashley joined the Guard in 2013, Phillips said.
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