The Mayor of Newport has been released from the hospital with minor injuries after crashing his plane yesterday.
Emergency personnel responded to the incident involving 66-year-old Dean Sawyer in the late afternoon.
Sawyer had two passengers in his Cessna single-engine plane.
One -identified as 61-year-old Deborah Reasoner- suffered serious injuries and was taken to a Portland hospital.
Another passenger has been described as a seven-year-old boy, and like Mayor Sawyer, was released from a Newport hospital. The Register-Guard reports it's Reasoner's grandson.
An Oregon State Police report says Sawyer was flying around the Depoe Bay area, then noticed a mechanical problem. When he realized the plane lacked the altitude to reach the Newport Airport, he did an emergency landing on the beach north of the jetty, near the Yaquina Bay Lighthouse.
Officials say Mayor Sawyer has held a pilot’s license for 40 years. Prior to the crash, he’d flown that plane for more than 30 years.
No other information is available at this time.
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