Cathryn ‘Carey’ Depuy and Ryan Adams were 18 years old.
By Raif Karerat
Two freshmen from Colgate University have been killed after their small plane crashed in a wooded area in rural upstate New York.
Federal Aviation Administration officials began investigating the cause of the plane’s crash Monday.
The single-engine Cessna piloted by Cathryn “Carey” Depuy was about 10 miles away from Hamilton Municipal Airport on Sunday afternoon when the plane went down in a wooded area in Morrisville.
Cathryn “Carey” Depuy and her passenger, Ryan Adams — both 18 and from Ridgefield, Conn. — were discovered dead at the scene, said Madison County Undersheriff John Ball.
Madison County 911 first received a call about the plane crash at 12:53 p.m., Ball said. At first, emergency responders had trouble finding the crash, Morrisville Fire Chief Rick Gorton told Syracuse Media Group.
After futilely scanning for any signs of smoke, a man on an ATV frantically waved them down. The man led them to the base of a tree, which the plane had apparently struck on its way down, inside of which lay Depuy and Adams. Gorton said Depuy made a radio call for help before the crash.
“The plane was having issues, I guess,” he told Syracuse Media Group.
According to Federal Aviation Administration records, Depuy held a student pilot license issued in October 2013.
“There wasn’t much for us to do, obviously nothing I can do as an emergency responder. They were already gone,” Gorton told the Daily News.
Depuy and Adams were expected to graduate in 2019. Colgate University will hold a community vigil in the campus chapel on Monday evening, according to the Associated Press.