MARYSVILLE — A pilot killed in a single-engine plane crash owned a home with a view of the runway where he took off Wednesday evening.
Greg Capes, 64, who lived north of Lake Stevens, had just registered a single-engine Murphy Moose with the Federal Aviation Administration months ago. The fixed-wing plane was stamped as airworthy June 6, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
Capes took off Wednesday from Frontier Airpark, a gated neighborhood that bills itself as “the Pacific Northwest’s premier fly-in community, where flying is a way of life.” It’s centered around a 3,600-foot runway.
The aircraft crashed around 7 p.m. about five miles west of Capes’ home, in farmland in north Marysville.
Capes died of blunt trauma, according to the Snohomish County Medical Examiner’s Office. He was registered as a private single-engine airplane pilot since at least 2010.
Capes had been flying the home-built kit airplane with an experimental certificate. It had a Vedeneyev M14-PF engine built in Russia, according to the FAA.
The cause of the crash was under investigation on Thursday by the National Transportation Safety Board.
One investigator continued to gather evidence at the scene in the 15700 block of 51st Avenue NE.
Radar showed the pilot circled before the crash, NTSB spokesman Peter Knudsen said.
Investigators don’t know if Capes planned to land at Arlington Municipal Airport, a mile north of the crash. Capes has family ties on Whidbey Island, too.
No one else was aboard the plane Wednesday.
A preliminary report from the NTSB is expected in the coming weeks.
Caleb Hutton: 425-339-3454; chutton@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @snocaleb.
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