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Purchase, N.Y. • A family spokesman says the pilot of a small plane who died in a crash outside New York City was Richard Rockfeller, great grandson of Standard Oil co-founder John D. Rockefeller.
Westchester County Airport operations manager John Starace (STEH'-uhs) says the aircraft took off just after 8 a.m. Friday and went down after hitting some trees west of the airfield.
Rockefeller, of Falmouth, Maine, was the only person on board the Portland, Maine-registered aircraft. The family spokesman says the 64-year-old was a doctor and father of two.
Starace says the plane was a single-engine Piper Meridian that crashed on a road in the hamlet of Purchase.
It wasn't immediately known whether the pilot reported any problems before going down.