The Bangor Daily News was the first to report this story. What you’re reading here would likely not be made public without the efforts of professional journalists asking questions, interviewing sources and obtaining documents.
When Tammy Baker-Paradis pointed out a low-flying plane to her 9-year-old daughter, her first thought was that it was cool. Then she saw the plane teeter from side to side.
Baker-Paradis was driving on Route 4 back to her hometown of Strong shortly before 11 a.m. Tuesday when she saw the plane. She looked back at the road and glanced back to look at the plane but it was gone. Her daughter said it crashed into the mountain.
The mother and daughter likely witnessed the final seconds before a Maine Warden Service plane crashed, killing the only person on board. It crashed around 11 a.m. near Schoolhouse Pond in Avon, according to Mark Latti, a spokesperson for the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.
“It disappeared, it literally was there and it was gone,” she said. “I knew in my heart something was definitely wrong because I couldn’t imagine that it got over the mountains in that amount of time that I had looked away.”
The plane was going north toward Phillips, she said. It looked like it had water landing gear attached to the plane.
She could feel the wind moving her car as she was driving 55 mph. Wind gusts just north of the area reached 29 mph shortly before 11 a.m., according to the National Weather Service.
At her last glance, the pilot did not look to have the plane under control and was making little headway getting over the mountain.
“You could literally see the wings just [go] side to side in the wind,” Baker-Paradis said.
She saw no explosions or smoke. No more than 10 minutes later the sirens from first responders started, Baker-Paradis said. She heard sirens for roughly 45 minutes after the plane disappeared.
News of the pilot’s death hit her hard, being from a region of the state where wardens are embedded in the community.
“My heart goes out to him and his family,” Baker-Paradis said. “That’s awful.”
