Plane Crash Near McGregor Airport Injures 3 People

Credit: Aitkin County Sheriff’s Office

On Sunday evening, three people in a Piper PA-28 airplane took off from the McGregor airport in Aitkin County. But any flier’s worst fears were realized when the plane crashed in a swampy area.

“It sounds like they lost power shortly into the flight and they tried to turn around and return to the airport, and they didn’t make it back to the airport,” Aitkin County Sheriff Daniel Guida told Lakeland News. “They crashed about probably three quarters of a mile from here.”

23-year-old Kaden Brazinsky and Jocelyn Erlandson of Ham Lake and 22-year-old Wyatt Sherry of New Richmond were in the plane when it crashed short of the runway, resulting in injuries for all three on board.

“Specifically, there [were] some leg injuries to the people in the front of the plane and possibly a spinal injury to the person in the back of the plane,” Guida elaborated. “They’re all in stable condition right now, so to walk away from or to be alive after a plane crash is a great deal.”

While the Sheriff’s Office believes that the plane lost power shortly after takeoff, the FAA is conducting an investigation to determine exactly what went wrong on the flight.

“They’re going to dig into it completely,” said Guida. “You see the plane that we pulled out, this company will take that plane down. They’ll do a full engine analysis. They’ll do a bunch of different work. I know they took fuel samples already. They’ve done a bunch of stuff like that to try to determine why exactly it did crash-land.” said Guida.

A 1-year-old Yorkshire Terrier was also on board the plane when it crashed. The dog has not been seen since the plane went down.