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Air Force identifies pilot killed in crash


Major Lee Berra
                 EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, California
Major Lee Berra EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, California
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SAN ANTONIO- Edwards Air Force base says 32 year old Major Lee Berra joined the Air Force in 2007. Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph officials say Berra was in his 3rd week of a 14 week pilot instructor training program. Wednesday he was flying his civilian air plane when it crashed hundreds of feet from the runway at Stinson municipal airport. Berra's wife came with Lee from California for the 14 week program, but was not flying with him Wednesday. Pilots at Stinson Municipal Airport say they heard over air traffic control that there was a disabled aircraft, they say they knew then something was wrong.

Louis Everett has been flying for 25 years and teaches at Stinson’s flight school, sky safety.

Everett was in the air Wednesday with a student.

"The closer we got to the Stinson airport I noticed the emergency vehicles off to the side of the airport, there on the river front,” said Everett.

Everett didn't think it could be a plane crash, but then he saw the wreckage and how close it was to the runway.

"As we got closer I could just tell that it was bad, so my first thought was what happened and is anyone alive,” said Everett.

The plane Berra was flying was registered to him along with a co-owner Sydney Berra. In a statement from Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph they say "our nation’s military pilots are extraordinary people and we grieve with the pilot's loved ones.”

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