Investigation begins on Oxford plane crash that killed Starkville teen

OXFORD, Miss. (WCBI) – As the Starkville community mourns the loss of a bright young woman, investigators are already at work. Their job is to find out why she died.

18-year-old Lake Little died Saturday from injuries when the plane she was flying went down on the golf course in Oxford.

The National Transportation Safety Board held a press conference Monday morning in Oxford

Investigators said they’ll be at the scene for the next several days collecting what they refer to as “perishable evidence” as well as looking into several other factors.

“The three main things we look at are the pilot, the aircraft, and the airplane. So we asked the Civil Air Patrol for the pilot’s flight history, flight training, the airplane. We’re going to ask for the maintenance history on the aircraft, and the weather that was accruing at the time we can get from the local airport over here,” said Air Safety Investigator Ed Malinowski.

Investigators said there were also several eyewitnesses to the crash. They want to know what those witnesses saw and heard.

“From initial statements, we were told the aircraft was climbing up, it made a turn, and was slow and descended, impacted terrain,” said Malinowski.

Investigators believed pilot Lake Little was in the process of a round trip from GTR Airport to Oxford and back to GTR when the aircraft went down.

There was no black box onboard the airplane, but they will be using other measures to learn more about what caused the accident.

“We’re going to request radar, and hopefully the radar track of the flight will give us an indication of what the aircraft was doing in its flight. We’re going to ask air traffic control if they’ve got records with the communications with the accident airplane,” said Malinowski.

There is no official timeline on the investigation. Investigators said it could take anywhere from the next several days to the next several weeks to review all of the evidence.

Investigators also said after all the evidence is reviewed, it could take six months to a year for an official final report on the accident.

Little was a student pilot with the Civil Air Patrol. Her friends said her dream was to become a professional pilot.