A small plane with three people on board crashed in a field Thursday morning near St. Mary’s Airport shortly after takeoff.

The craft quickly caught fire and was burned to a skeleton of a plane within minutes.

The Maryland State Police reported:

The pilot has been identified as Gerald Nance, Sr.,52, of the 300 block Webb Faulk Road, Bladenboro, North Carolina . He and his son, Gerald Nance, Jr., 19, were not injured in the crash.  The pilot’s mother, Agnes Nance, 85, of the 9100 block of Mill Branch Road, Bowie, Maryland, was transported by Maryland State Police Medevac helicopter to the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore with injuries deemed critical at the time of the crash.

Shortly after 8:00 a.m., Thursday morning, troopers from the Leonardtown Barrack responded to the report of a plane crash in a field near the 2300 block of Lawrence Hayden Road in Hollywood.  The airplane, later determined to be a Piper PA-22-160, single engine fixed wing aircraft, became engulfed in flames after the pilot and passengers were able to escape the wreckage.  Fire department personnel from the Hollywood Volunteer Fire Department responded to the scene and extinguished the flames.

Preliminary information developed by the troopers indicates that shortly after takeoff, the airplane immediately experienced mechanical difficulty.  Unable to return back to the airport, the pilot attempted an emergency landing in the open field. The plane did not strike any dwellings or structures on the ground. The pilot and his family were en route back to North Carolina at the time of the crash.

Maryland State Police crime scene technicians assisted investigators by processing the crash site in an attempt to recover physical evidence from in and around the scene.  Troopers were assisted by members of the Patuxent Naval Air Station Crash Team.

The cause of the crash has not been determined at this time. Federal officials will conduct an investigation into this incident.

Click Images Below To Enlarge