Decorated Veteran Fatally Injured When Plane Went Down

A decorated veteran and his girlfriend were fatally injured last Sunday when the plane they were in went down at the Warrenton Air Park in Fauquier County, VA.

Maule M-7 File Photo

Shannon Beebe was flying with Elizabeth Pignatello when the accident occurred. Beebe was an author who had been featured in National Geographic, according to television station WJLA in Washington, DC. He had recently returned from Angola, where he had served as an assistant Army attache. Beebe graduated from West Point, and had become one of the nation's most recognized authorities on Africa within the Department of Defense with an emphasis on human security, and had been an adjunct professor at George Washington University. Pignatello was a patent attorney, and the two had been dating about a year.

FAA records say the aircraft that Beebe was flying was a Maule M-7-235 registered to Thomas Richards of Warrenton, VA. The preliminary FAA accident report indicates that the airplane went down off the end of the runway, and caught fire after impacting the ground. No other details of the accident were immediately available.

FMI: www.ntsb.gov