Family saw crash that killed father and son, aircraft ended up on in-laws' back yard

Yesterday, ANN reported a tragic accident in Winona (MS) that killed a father and his 9-year-old son when their 1953 Cessna 195 hit a pole on an abandoned race track. We honestly thought it was too much of a coincidence that the aircraft struck a pole that was standing in property owned by the pilot's family, but we didn't have any other information, so we decided to report it as we were told it happened.

It now turns out that the accident may have been caused by a pilot trying to impress family members by buzzing the home where they were gathered for a Thanksgiving dinner.

The relatives of Timothy Mitchell were watching him fly overhead with his son, Timothy Adam Mitchell. They said he hit a power line with one of his wheels.

"The family had gathered for Thanksgiving and they were flying in from Tim's parents' house in McCool," said Chastity Sawyer, a cousin of Tim Mitchell's wife, Tina, to the Mississippi Clarion-Ledger. "He was going to fly over the house so that all the other kids could see the plane," Sawyer said. "But the plane hit a power line, the line got caught in the tire. The plane went nose up and crashed."

Mitchell had flown earlier in the day with his daughter Christy, 16, and other family children. The site of the crash turned out to be his in-laws' back yard, according to Montgomery County Coroner Karl Oliver. "It was about 30 yards from their house," he said. "This shows the fragility of human life."

The FAA is continuing its investigation into the crash, according to FAA spokesperson Kathleen Bergen. "We don't release preliminary information," said Bergen.

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