A Hollidaysburg man died Friday afternoon when his experimental plane crashed into a field short of a runway in southern Virginia.
Herbert G. Rutter, 80, of 1101 Hedge St. may have been flying his self-built Long-EZ to an airplane festival being held at nearby Suffolk Executive Airport this weekend.
Authorities don't know the cause of the crash, which occurred in fair weather with little wind, Virginia State Police spokeswoman Sgt. Michelle Cotten said.
Rutter circled the field twice, then crashed on his third approach, said Randy Johnson, manager of the Wakefield Municipal Airport in the Hampton Roads area.
The plane bounced, ejecting Rutter, then smashed into a runway barrier, Cotten said.
Rutter was dead by the time rescue workers reached him a few minutes later, Johnson said.
There was no fire, smoke or leaking fuel, Cotten said.
Rutter had been flying since at least 1975, according to Gary Orner of Altoona, a pilot and member of the Blair County Airport Authority.
A health problem, bad gasoline or anything in between could have caused the crash, Orner said.
For his age, Rutter seemed "awfully healthy," however, he said. And he had "oodles of experience," so landing in such good weather would have been no more difficult for him than driving down an empty interstate.
He was a "fixture" at the Altoona-Blair County Airport and talked often about planes and flying with Orner, who is an airplane mechanic.
He was straightforward, with little patience for nonsense, in the manner of World War II and Korean War veterans he knows, Orner said.
Yet he was great when teaching kids basic flying facts at the Experimental Aircraft Association's big meet in Oshkosh, Wis., he said.
"The reason he was good at it was he enjoyed doing it," Orner said.
Rutter's father operated an airfield at Utahville, Clearfield County, said Paul Nuss of Martinsburg, a pilot.
"He grew up on the Utahville airport," and learned to fly as a teen, Nuss said.
Rutter was a chief in the Navy, serving as a mechanic on a destroyer escort, and then he worked at Veeder Root and retired from Small Tube Products, Nuss said.
"If there's a bright side, at least he was doing what he really loved," Orner said.
