Plane Went Down Near Rickenbacker International Airport In Columbus

A Cirrus SR22 with two people on board went down Sunday morning resulting in the fatal injuries of a New Jersey neuro-oncologist and his wife.

File Photo

Viswanathan Rajaraman, M.D. and his wife Mary J. Sundaram from Franklin Lakes, NJ, were aboard the airplane when it went down. The Franklin Patch reports that the airplane caught fire shortly after takeoff from Rickenbacker International Airport (KLCK) in Columbus, OH and went down east of the runway.

The couple had reportedly been to Washington, DC, for the graduation of their daughter from law school at Georgetown University. They had refueled in Columbus, though it was not immediately clear why they had traveled so far west on their return to New Jersey.

Television station WCMH in Columbus reports that FAA records indicate that the airplane belonged to Buds Aviation LLC in Franklin Lakes, NJ. The station reports that the local police bomb squad was called to deactivate the airplane's airframe parachute deployment rocket, which it was able to do without incident.

FMI: www.faa.gov, www.ntsb.gov