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Newport Mayor And Boy Suffer Minor Injuries From Plane Crash, Third Passenger Seriously Hurt

Oregon State Police
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OSP

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.

Credit Lauren Sobkoviak / Flickr.com
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Flickr.com
A Cessna 172 Skyhawk in flight. This is the type of aircraft Dean Sawyer was flying during yesterday's incident.

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.

Copyright 2019, KLCC.

Brian Bull is an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Oregon, and remains a contributor to the KLCC news department. He began working with KLCC in June 2016.   In his 27+ years as a public media journalist, he's worked at NPR, Twin Cities Public Television, South Dakota Public Broadcasting, Wisconsin Public Radio, and ideastream in Cleveland. His reporting has netted dozens of accolades, including four national Edward R. Murrow Awards (22 regional),  the Ohio Associated Press' Best Reporter Award, Best Radio Reporter from  the Native American Journalists Association, and the PRNDI/NEFE Award for Excellence in Consumer Finance Reporting.