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Fredrika Ballard has been identified as one of the three people who were killed in a plane crash in a remote, wooded area in western Massachusetts over the weekend.
Fredrika Ballard was the owner of the Fly Lugu Flight School and the president at AeroDesign Aircraft Services.
Ballard also owned a maintenance shop at Barnes Municipal Airport, where she employed four mechanics, and is involved with initiatives to build new hangars at the airport.
She earned her Flight Instructor rating in August 2019 and her Instrument Flight Instructor rating in February 2020.
In 2007, she was the director Of Operations at Facial Cosmetic & Maxillofacial Surgery.
She obtain a degree in Psychology from the Castleton University.
What we know about the western Massachusetts plane crash
The plane was found at 12:33 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 15, in a small clearing in the woods of the Leyden Wildlife Management Area.
All three people were declared dead at the scene by Greenfield firefighters and American Medical Response paramedics.
The plane took off from Barnes Airport in Westfield at around 11:06 a.m. on Sunday, state police detectives in the Northwest District Attorney’s Office said.
Authorities began looking for the crash site at 11:30 a.m. when 911 calls came in from dog walkers in Leyden and Greenfield reported a plane appeared “about to crash,” police said.
All three people were brought from the wreckage to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, and troopers processed and documented the crash site.
State Police detectives assigned to the Northwest District Attorney’s Office determined that the plane had departed from Barnes Airport in Westfield at about 11:06 a.m. Sunday.
Troopers confirmed the three victims were the plane’s only occupants.
Inspectors from the Federal Aviation Administration also responded to the crash site on Sunday, and a National Transportation Safety Board investigator was expected to arrive on Monday, police said.
A trooper had been at the scene overnight to ensure security, police said.
Federal authorities have yet to give a reason for the crash.
The National Weather Service said Sunday that snow squalls did not impact the Greenfield area until about 1 p.m. that day and that wind speeds in the area around the time of the crash were about 10 mph.
