81-year-old Vietnam veteran killed in Weld County plane crash
A small plane crashed into a Weld County field last week, killing the 81-year-old Nebraska pilot and kickstarting a federal investigation.
Alex Watson, a Nebraska man known as Ben by friends and family, earned his final set of wings on Friday.
According to the National Transportation Safety Board, the Beech 35-B33 — a private, single-engine plane manned by Watson — took off from Chadron, Nebraska, between 7:30 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. on Friday, headed for Hudson.
The plane, registered to Watson and his wife, crashed in a field near Nunn in Weld County around 2 p.m. Friday, just 50 miles north of Watson's final destination, according to a preliminary crash report from the Federal Aviation Administration.
The FAA labeled the crash as an accident, but federal investigators still aren't sure what caused it and said the investigation could take up to two years to complete.
