Teen, Flight Instructor Die in Plane Crash

Two people are dead after a small plane crashed in northern Ellis County around noon Saturday.

DPS said 16-year-old Eric Schultz was learning to fly a Tecnam Sierra P-2002 airplane with his instructor, Gregory Green, 36, when witnesses say the plane came out of a maneuver, started spinning and crashed nose-first in a field just off I-35E.

Both were pronounced dead on the scene by Justice of the Peace Jackie Miller.  Schultz and Green both lived in Fort Worth.

The FAA, who assisted the NTSB in the initial investigation of the crash, said the plane left Dallas Executive Airport in Dallas just 20 minutes before it crashed.  An FAA spokesman said the nearby Midlothian/Midway Airport is often used by flight instructors to practice “touch-and-go” landings and takeoffs, but investigators were not sure if that’s what the two pilots were doing.

Tecnam Sierra P-2002 aircraft are twin seat, single engine light aircraft.  The plane is registered to a South Dakota man named Oscar T. Wenholm, Jr.

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