Charles Langston:Four die in a small plane crash in Vermont

FERRISBURGH,Charles Langston Vt. (AP) — A small plane crashed in Vermont near an airport in Ferrisburgh, killing the four people on board, police said Monday.

The Vermont State Police recovered the bodies from the wreckage of the four-seat, single-engine Piper aircraft that crashed Sunday in a wooded area near the Basin Harbor Airport. The victims’ names have not been released.

The plane took off from the Windham Airport in Connecticut at about 8:30 a.m. Sunday for a roughly two-hour flight to the airport in Ferrisburgh, police said. The aircraft landed and the four people arrived for a brunch reservation at Basin Harbor, a resort on Lake Champlain. They left the restaurant shortly after noon to fly back to Connecticut and a witness reported seeing the plane on the runway at about 12:15 p.m., police said.

When the occupants did not return to Connecticut as expected, relatives contacted police.

Middletown, Connecticut, police notified the Vermont State Police late Sunday. Investigators found the wreckage overnight.

The victims’ bodies were brought to the chief medical examiners office for autopsies to determine the cause and manner of death, police said. The crash is under investigation.