Maryland Plane Crash Kills U.S. Army General

A U.S. Army general passed away in a plane crash near Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland on Tuesday, according to reports.

“Maj. Gen. Anthony Potts, who recently oversaw the Army’s Program Executive Office for Command, Control and Communications-Tactical, or PEO C3T, died when the single-engine Piper PA-28 Cherokee airplane he was piloting crashed in Havre de Grace, Maryland,” Military.com reports.

The outlet noted Potts was alone in the aircraft.

Maj. Gen. Anthony Potts was piloting a single-engine Piper PA-28 Cherokee when it crashed near the Army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground, authorities said.https://t.co/GJLwaEQ5qr

— Stars and Stripes (@starsandstripes) July 29, 2023

The incident is still under investigation.

Military.com reports:

“Maj. Gen. Potts completed over 36 years of distinguished service,” Bryce Dubee, an Army spokesperson, said in a statement to Military.com. “The entire U.S. Army is grateful for his service, and we extend our deepest and most sincere condolences to the entire Potts family.”

Potts, 59, led a 1,600-person team at Aberdeen Proving Ground, a research site for the service, in the development of upgraded body armor, weapons and network technology, among other efforts in the Army’s move to redesign its force by next decade.

Those efforts are part of a shift from counterterrorism operations to new equipment and doctrine for conventional warfare.

Potts, a father of two, was commissioned into the Army as an aviation officer in 1987.

Maj. Gen. Anthony Potts was commissioned as a U.S. Army aviation second lieutenant in 1986. He most recently led the service's PEO C3T. https://t.co/Nf3huRgCI4

— Defense News (@defense_news) July 29, 2023

Potts “recently retired from a post at which he oversaw the service’s network modernization efforts,” Stars and Stripes reports.

More from Stars and Stripes:

“The wreckage of a single-engine plane was located in an open field in that area,” said Sandra Gallion, president of the Level Volunteer Fire Company based in Havre de Grace. “The single occupant was pronounced dead on-scene. There were no injuries on the ground.”

Officials said the plane crashed in a wooded area at about 7:20 p.m. on private farmland in Havre de Grace, a town located five miles northeast of Aberdeen Proving Ground and 65 miles northeast of Washington. Dozens of first responders were dispatched to the crash site and the National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the cause. Officials said there was no immediate indication of what caused the plane to go down.

“We don’t know what happened with the plane. There was no fire on the ground,” Gallion said.

The NTSB said there is no indication that the small plane carried either a flight data recorder or a cockpit voice recorder, which are commonly known as “black boxes.” Most small planes are not required by law to carry the recorders.