Plane crashes in field in Randolph Co.

FAIRVIEW, Ind. (WISH) - Investigators with the Federal Aviation Authority are in Randolph County where a small plane crashed killing the pilot.

24-Hour News 8’s sister station WOOD-TV has confirmed independently through family members that the pilot is David Eyde, 42, from Ada, Michigan.

The plane went down in a corn field at around 12:40 p.m. near State Road 28 just east of Albany.

The four seater Mooney M-20 Turbo Aircraft was registered to Eyde’s company and reportedly took off from a small airport near Grand Rapids, Michigan at around 9:45 a.m.

At around 11:40 a.m. the plane started to fly erratically near the Muncie/Delaware County airport.

U.S. Military officials said they dispatched two F-16 fighter jets to investigate.

"In this day and age all options are open you don’t know if someone on board is suicidal, if someone has a medical emergency, a terrorist situation. Those are all types of things we have to take into account," said Delaware County Sheriff George Sheridan, JR.

“What they saw was the pilot appeared to be slumped over the controls,” said ISP Sgt. Rod Russell.

An eye witness on the ground described to 24-Hour News 8’s Jay Hermacinski what happened next.

“He was coming around in a circle sideways. After three trips, the third trip around he landed back there,” said Muncie resident David Lykins, who witnessed the crash. “There was debris up in the trees; on the ground in the corn field he left a path maybe 75 yards long.”

Officials believe the pilot may have blacked out due to a condition known as hypoxia , in which the body as a whole, or a region of the body, is deprived adequate oxygen.

NORAD F-16 fighter jets responded to incident

The intent of military intercepts is to identify aircraft, re-establish communications with local FAA air traffic controllers and instruct the pilot to follow air traffic controllers to land safely for further follow-on action.

NORAD's mission – in close collaboration with homeland defense, security, and law enforcement partners – is to prevent air attacks against North America, safeguard the sovereign airspaces of the United States and Canada by responding to unknown, unwanted and unauthorized air activity approaching and operating within these airspaces, and provide aerospace and maritime warning for North America. NORAD may be required to monitor, shadow, divert from flight path, direct to land and/or destroy platforms deemed a potential threat to North America.

NORAD is the bi-national Canadian and American command that is responsible for the air defense of North America and maritime warning. The command has three subordinate regional headquarters: the Alaskan NORAD Region at Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska; the Canadian NORAD Region at Winnepeg, Manitoba; and the Continental NORAD Region at Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla. The command is poised both tactically and strategically in our nation’s capital to provide a multilayered defense to detect, deter and prevent potential threats flying over the airspace of the United States and Canada.