Pilot dies in central Minnesota plane crash

Updated: 3:50 p.m. | Posted: 8:50 a.m.

A 64-year-old man died Saturday night when the plane he was piloting crashed in central Minnesota.

The Douglas County Sheriff's Office reported that it received several 911 calls just before 7:30 p.m. about a plane crash at the intersection of Town Hall Road and 10th Avenue SW in LaGrand Township, about 3 miles west of Alexandria.

"Medical personnel arrived on scene and found the sole occupant of the plane to be deceased," the sheriff's office said in a news release. "The plane appears to have struck a ... power pole before landing in the west ditch off of Town Hall Road."

The sheriff's office on Sunday afternoon identified the pilot as Kenneth James Ryan of Alexandria.

The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board have been notified and will be handling the investigation of the crash.

It was the second incident involving a downed plane near Alexandria in as many days. On Friday evening, a pilot escaped injury after he was forced to make an emergency landing on Lake Winona in Alexandria, a couple miles from the scene of Saturday's crash.