Two weeks ago, neighbors of Troy Brothers attended a party celebrating the 19-year-old’s pending departure to the U.S. Naval Academy.
Those same neighbors stood stunned Friday evening on their quiet street in Fraser, reeling from the news that Brothers, his mother, his stepfather and his brother-in-law died earlier that day in a plane crash at Oakland County International Airport in Waterford.
It was the airport’s worst tragedy in terms of the number of fatalities in more than 40 years, officials said.
Aviation officials are investigating the cause of the crash involving the single-engine Cessna 172 piloted by Brothers. A recording of radio traffic from the airport’s control tower indicates that the plane may have been overweight.
The crash happened about 1:40 p.m., said J. David VanderVeen, director of central services for Oakland County. He said the four-seat aircraft took off using Runway 9 Left, the shorter of the airport’s two parallel runways, and reached an altitude of about 100 feet when the pilot radioed the tower asking for permission to turn around. The plane crashed in a field beyond the end of the runway and burst into flames.
