plan crshed during air show leaving pilot dead.

A pilot is dead after a stunt plane crashed during practice flights at the New York Air Show in Orange County, state police said.

The aircraft was flying near the Stewart International Airport in New Windsor when it crashed down just after 2 p.m., Trooper Steven Nevel said.

The pilot was the only person in the plane.

A witness at the scene shared a photo of the soaring aircraft moments before it fell from the sky. Its tail appears blown off with heavy white smoke trailing behind.

Benjamin Granucci, who uploaded the photo on Twitter before taking it down, said he believes it was a 1998 Giles G-202 — an aerobatic, fixed-wing single-seater.


BEN GRANUCCI/ NYCAVIATION.COM
Photographs show what appears to be the tail of the plane falling off during a practice run for the New York Air Show in Orange County.

NEWS 12 WESTCHESTER
  The pilot of the aircraft died during the crash.
"What I saw was the aircraft come in for a dive. As it pulled up, it suddenly crossed the crowd line and spun towards the ground," Granucci, who lists himself as an editor for NYC Aviation, tweeted.

FAA records list the plane as belonging to Andrew Wright of Austin, Texas. Wright had given a local reporter a preview flight earlier and was scheduled to perform at the show.

A website for Wright lists him as flying his G-202 competitively in air shows since 2001. On Sept. 2 he is scheduled to perform at the Thunder Over The Boardwalk Air Show in Atlantic City. There he'll attempt to perform the most inverted flat spins for a new Guinness World Record.

A dizzying video uploaded online five months ago, allegedly by Wright, claims to show him performing an 83 turn inverted flat spin.