Rancho Cordova PD reserve officer among 2 killed in Auburn plane crash, authorities say
The Placer County Sheriff’s Office has identified two men killed in a Friday morning plane crash near the Auburn airport as a father and son, the latter of whom was a reserve officer at a Sacramento County police department.
Anthony Lawrence Wright, an 80-year-old Meadow Vista resident, and his 55-year-old son, Anthony Lawrence Wright Jr., a resident of Placer County, died in the crash about a mile northeast of Auburn Municipal Airport, the Placer County Sheriff’s Office said in an update to social media just before 1:30 p.m.
Wright Jr. was a reserve officer and full-time records officer with the Rancho Cordova Police Department, the Sheriff’s Office wrote.
“Tony was a 23-year veteran of the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office and joined our RCPD team in 2008,” the department said Friday in a statement. “We are grieving the loss of a beloved member of our team, and our thoughts and prayers are with Tony’s family and friends.”
One other occupant of the plane was injured, the Sheriff’s Office reported.
Federal Aviation Administration records show that the aircraft, a Stinson Vultee V-77, was registered in Wright Sr.’s name.
Sheriff’s officials tweeted shortly after 10 a.m. that personnel were responding to the area of the Black Oak Golf Course for a plane crash, and included video from the scene showing the wreckage of a red airplane strewn amid a grove of trees.
The California Highway Patrol responded just before 10 a.m. to the 13000 block of Dry Creek Road, about a mile north of the airport, to reports of a possible plane down, according to CHP’s incident log.
CHP Auburn, the Placer County Sheriff’s Office and Cal Fire’s Nevada-Yuba-Placer units responded to the area. Dry Creek Road was closed in the area but reopened just before 1:30 p.m., Cal Fire said in a tweet.
FAA spokesman Ian Gregor confirmed the plane was a single-engine Stinson Vultee V-77. The aircraft, also known as the Stinson Reliant, is a modified version of an American-made World War II-era utility aircraft.
According to dispatch audio, a caller reported a “low-flying plane” at about 9:55 a.m. About 30 seconds later, a radio call went out indicating that the plane had gone down.
Photographs and records found online show that Wright’s black-and-red plane won the “Grand Champion” award at the 2010 Golden West Regional Fly-in contest at the Yuba County Airport in Marysville, in the category of “Vintage aircraft--Antiques.” It had also been photographed on display at Mather Airport, where it was exhibited on the runway during the 2010 California Capital Airshow.
The last plane crash in Auburn came in May 2019, when a single-engine plane flipped on the runway and landed upside-down. The pilot in that incident sustained only minor injuries, Cal Fire said in a statement.
The most recent fatality at the Auburn airport happened in May 2013, when a private pilot and his passenger were both killed after the aircraft stalled as it was preparing to land, according to the National Transportation Safety Board’s final report.
This story was originally published January 24, 2020 at 10:34 AM.
