Couple killed in Greene County plane crash identified

SNOW HILL, N.C. — Authorities have identified the couple killed in a small plane crash in North Carolina.

Greene County Sheriff Lemmie Smith said Friday that Mark Sobel and wife, Joan Wilson, were killed when their plane went down in a farm field several hundred feet from a residential area near Snow Hill, located about 20 miles southwest of Greenville. Sobel and Wilson were both 56.

Smith said the couple listed Estero, Fla., as their home address, but were flying to their home in Connecticut when the crash occurred Thursday afternoon.

Sobel and his wife were flying home to South Windsor, Conn., said South Windsor Mayor Matthew Streeter, who knew the couple for 20 years. The couple also lived in Florida for several months a year, Streeter said.

"They were well-known in the community," Streeter told WFSB-TV in Hartford. "When you have kids in the community, when you're active in the community, I think it's going to be a shock to the town."

Streeter said Mark Sobel was a pilot. Federal aviation officials said the plane was headed from Page Field in Fort Myers, Fla., to Brainard Airport in Hartford, Conn.

North Carolina officials say the pilot reported he had icing on the wings before the plan disappeared from radar and lost radio contact.

The Federal Aviation Administration Web site indicates the plane was a Lancair IV-P, a homebuilt, amateur plane completed in 2003.

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