NTSB reports experimental aircraft stalled before impact near Hedgesville, W.Va.

An experimental aircraft that crashed into a house near Hedgesville, W.Va., on Oct. 5 apparently stalled just before impact, according to a preliminary federal report released this week.

The pilot, 70-year-old Harry L. Weber, died after the crash of the Arion L1 airplane, which witnesses told authorities was assembled by the Danbury, Conn., man and flown for the first time two days before the accident, the National Transportation Safety Board report said.


Weber was flown to Inova Fairfax Hospital in Fairfax, Va., where he was pronounced dead. The cause of his death was blunt force trauma to the thorax and extremities,  the northern district office of the Virginia Chief Medical Examiner in Manassas, Va., said Friday.

The NTSB said in its report that Weber was attempting to obtain 40 flight hours so he could fly the airplane to his Connecticut residence. The local flight from the privately-owned Green Landings airfield was conducted under provisions of federal code, according to the NTSB and Berkeley County officials.

"Several ... witnesses reported that shortly after takeoff, approximately 15 feet above ground level, the airplane pitched up to a 45 to 60 degree nose up attitude and then appeared to have stalled just prior to impacting the house," the NTSB wrote in the report, which was released Tuesday.

Upon impact, the plane fractured into two pieces — damage the report described as substantial.

No one was injured at the home at 79 Chisholm Drive when the single-engine plane struck the foundation of the house and the attached wooden deck at 5:39 p.m., according to police and the NTSB report.

The plane veered east from the runway across a grassy area and struck the house while taking off from the airfield off McCoys Ferry Road in the Little Georgetown area of the county, police said previously.

Witnesses said that Weber had been assembling the aircraft since January 2011, the report said.

Services were held Thursday in Bethel, Conn., for Weber, who was a retired Pan American pilot, according to his obituary.