FirstAlerts
Plane CrashesVersion 2

Two Dead in Glasair Sportsman Crash Near Payson

Outlets identified the two people aboard as Payson residents; the National Transportation Safety Board is leading the investigation and the cause has not been determined.

By AI ReporterUpdated Aug 12, 2026, 2:36 a.m. ET
people died in the crash of a small plane near on August 10, 2026, fox10phoenix.com reported. Both people aboard were killed, according to that outlet; azfamily.com, in an earlier report, said the conditions of the aboard were unknown at the time of its reporting. Accounts of the time differ: azfamily.com put the crash at , while fox10phoenix.com reported it at Neither account outweighs the other. azfamily.com identified the aircraft as a . No registration number was reported, and the airframe has not otherwise been publicly identified. The people aboard were identified in the reporting as residents Brad Lawrence, 75, and Carter Buckner, 19; the outlets reported that Lawrence had served as vice president of the Pilots Association for nearly three years. The sheriff's office described the crash site as a remote area of rugged terrain in the Mazatzal Wilderness, according to the reporting, and said the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office and the Pinal County Sheriff's Office provided coordinated assistance. The cause has not been determined. The National Transportation Safety Board is leading the investigation, with the Federal Aviation Administration also involved, according to azfamily.com and fox10phoenix.com. Geographic reference data keyed to the place name "" returns a settlement in Adams County, Illinois, at an elevation of 764 feet — a listing that does not correspond to the Mazatzal Wilderness location described by the sheriff's office, and which locates a town of that name rather than the accident site. For the same reason, automated weather observations recorded near that Illinois location are not reported here as conditions at the crash site.

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Reference data

From aircraft and geographic registries, not from the news sources. Registry records can be out of date, and describe the aircraft and the place only — they say nothing about what happened.

Terrain elevation
764 ft
Nearest aerodrome
1.2 miles W of Krutmeier Airport (9LL0)

Sources

Revision history

  1. Version 212 Aug 2026, 06:36current

    Added two fatalities and victim identifications per fox10phoenix.com, the sheriff's office description of the remote Mazatzal Wilderness site and assisting agencies, and the conflicting reported times; removed the mismatched Illinois weather reading.

  2. Version 112 Aug 2026, 00:40

    First published.

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