4 dead in small plane crash in NY's Adirondack Mountains

LAKE CLEAR, N.Y. (AP) — No distress call was received from a small plane that crashed in the Adirondack Mountains, leaving four people dead in the fiery wreckage, a federal official said Saturday.

Peter Knudson, a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board, told The Associated Press that the last transmission from the Piper PA-46 aircraft was the pilot announcing he was taking off from Adirondack Regional Airport at 5:50 p.m. Friday.

The small single-engine plane went down in a wooded area northwest of the airport just minutes after taking off. The lakeside hamlet of tourist lodges, campsites and outdoors-oriented establishments is about 50 miles south of the Canadian border.