Overview
- A single‑engine fixed‑wing plane went down in Curlew Pond in Myles Standish State Forest shortly after 7:30 a.m. on Thursday, coming to rest overturned near the shoreline.
- Police officers, firefighters, members of the Plymouth County Dive Team and nearby residents reached the aircraft, removed the trapped pilot from the cockpit and transported him to Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital Plymouth.
- The pilot was later pronounced dead at the hospital; local prosecutors and one station identified him as 81‑year‑old Richard Carrara of Kingston and said he had departed Plymouth Municipal Airport earlier that morning.
- Officials described the aircraft as a two‑seat Piper PA‑18 and said the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board have opened investigations to determine the cause and sequence of events.
- Curlew Pond is about 46 acres with an average depth of 13 feet and a max near 33 feet, a factor that shaped the recovery effort and will figure in the investigators’ on‑scene work.