Two people — including a fertility doctor accused of using his own sperm to impregnate patients — died after an “experimental” aircraft crashed in New York over Memorial Day weekend.
The victims were flying in the single engine fixed wing plane on Sunday when it crashed in the Town of Yates just after 5:30 p.m. local time, according to apress releasefrom the Orleans County Sheriff’s Office (OCSO).
The pilot, 70-year-old Earl J. Luce Jr., of Brockport, and 72-year-old passenger Morris Wortman, of Rochester, were pronounced dead at the scene, the OCSO said.
A preliminary investigation into the crash suggested that the plane “fell to the ground” after its wings “detached from the fuselage.”
Luce and Wortman were traveling in what the OCSO described as a “hand built experimental aircraft."
The fuselage landed in “a pasture behind a residence” about 1,000 to 1,500 yards away from where the plane crashed, according to the OCSO.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) are investigating the crash, according to the OCSO.
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Wortman made headlines in 2021 when a womanfiled a lawsuitagainst him, accusing him of using his own sperm to impregnate her mother and numerous other patients without their knowledge in the 1980s, according to the Associated Press.
The lawsuit was filed after the 35-year-old woman, who was also a patient of the gynecologist, said she learned she had at least nine half-siblings through DNA testing, the news agency reported.
The woman alleged a slew of crimes, including fraud, negligence, medical malpractice, lack of informed consent, battery and emotional distress, according toThe Washington Post.
Wortman did not comment when the civil lawsuit, which is pending in Monroe County Court, was filed, per the AP.
source: people.com
