The TV station cited the Federal Aviation Administration as saying the pilot, Albert Orgain, left from Sabot Field in Richmond and was headed to Rocky Mount-Wilson Regional Airport.
Halifax-Northampton Regional Airport told rrspin.com Friday that at some point during the flight the attorney developed engine problems and was going to attempt to land at the airport outside Roanoke Rapids.
He crashed in a field in the Darlington community.
The FAA told WRAL Orgain had been diverted to Hanover County Municipal Airport when the engine problems were reported but decided to head to Halifax-Northampton for reasons unknown.
WRAL reported that Orgain was an aviation attorney and accomplished pilot and Vietnam veteran who flew helicopter missions with the U.S. Army. He was the recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross, a Purple Heart and six air medals.
This was at least the second known civilian aircraft fatality in Halifax County.
Multiple sources tell rrspin.com that Ted Powers died at the old airport in March 1964 when the wing structure of his small single-engine Mooney failed on takeoff. Powers was home on leave from the Army.
There have also been two military crashes.
The last military aviation fatality, where four crew members perished, was on April 16, 1970, when a T-39 jet collided with a U.S. Navy TA-4F Skyhawk. The T-39 crashed in a residential neighborhood in Weldon according to the Aviation Safety Network, while the Skyhawk crashed near the old Halifax County Airport off Highway 158.
The T-39 left from MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa and was headed to Langley Air Force Base in Newport News with a scheduled stop at Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter, South Carolina.
The cause of the crash was loss of control.
Prior to that crash, Lieutenant Fletcher Thomas Bender crashed his F-80 jet on a training mission in the summer of 1949. A marker and kiosk on the Roanoke Canal Trail commemorates that crash.
The FAA continues to investigate the Darlington crash, Halifax County Sheriff Wes Tripp said this morning.
