MIDDLESBORO, Ky. (AP) - Police in southeastern Kentucky say a pilot was injured when his small plane crashed after apparently encountering a problem just after takeoff.
Middlesboro police say the pilot suffered serious injuries but was conscious and able to talk to responders at the scene. He was flown to the University of Tennessee Medical Center. The pilot’s name hasn’t been released.
Police said the plane apparently took off from the Middlesboro-Bell County airport bound for Texas. A news release from police said a problem developed just after takeoff and the plane turned to land, but the pilot lost control upon approach. The release said a wing hit the runway, causing the plane to veer off and catch fire around 1 p.m. EDT Saturday.
Federal investigators were expected to arrive Saturday. The airport will be closed until the Federal Aviation Administration releases it.
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LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) - Gregory Johnson, who had a long career as a federal agriculture official focusing on conservation issues, was selected Friday to lead Kentucky’s wildlife agency in the aftermath of an ethics scandal involving its former commissioner.
Johnson, 58, was the unanimous choice of the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources Commission at a special meeting at Frankfort. The avid hunter and angler becomes only the eighth commissioner in the department’s 70-year history.
Johnson’s credentials were highlighted by decades of work on conservation efforts with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
“This is not just work or a job for me,” he said. “Fish and wildlife conservation is what I have been committed to my whole life.”
In the days before his selection, Johnson was fishing for crappie at a couple of Kentucky lakes. He’s been a regular hunter and spoke fondly of his experiences in the woods - both the fellowship with fellow hunters and the thrill of bagging his prey.
He spoke of the department’s responsibilities in maintaining those traditions for future hunters and anglers.
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HAZARD, Ky. (AP) - An eastern Kentucky man has pleaded guilty to killing three people in a domestic dispute at a college campus.
WYMT-TV (https://bit.ly/ShxTNH) reported Dalton Stidham accepted a plea deal which takes the death penalty off the table and recommends life without parole.
He was charged with three counts of murder in the fatal shootings last year of his former girlfriend and two of her family members in the parking lot of Hazard Community and Technical College.
Police have said that Stidham had a child with 20-year-old Caitlin Cornett and had met in the parking lot to exchange custody of the 2-year-old boy. Cornett; her uncle, 53-year-old Jackie Cornett and her 12-year-old cousin, Taylor Jade Cornett, died in the shooting.
Defense attorney Will Collins said his client entered the plea on April 25. Formal sentencing for Stidham was set for June 5.
The Cornett family requested that the deal be offered to Stidham, who accepted.
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SPRING CITY, Tenn. (AP) - The Tennessee Valley Authority says work on the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant has moved from large-scale construction to completion and testing of individual plant systems.
The federal agency announced a target completion date for the plant’s Unit 2 reactor of December 2015. The update issued Friday covered the period from November 2013 to January 2014.
The facility is on course to become the nation’s first new nuclear generating plant of the 21st century.
About 3,200 workers are on the Watts Bar 2 project, which will be TVA’s seventh nuclear unit. Watts Bar 2 will add 1,100 megawatts of electricity, providing enough energy for approximately 650,000 homes.
TVA is the nation’s largest public utility, supplying power to about 9 million people in Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia.
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