Rhode Island couple dies after planes crashes on I-93 in Hooksett

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A Rhode Island couple died in a plane crash near Interstate 93 in Hooksett yesterday when their plane struck a light pole and plummeted into the roadway.

Husband and wife Herman and Doris Hassinger, both 83 and from Block Island, R.I., were on their way to a board of trustees meeting at a New Hampton boarding school, an official there said yesterday.

Herman Hassinger, president of Herman Hassinger Architects, was a trustee emeritus and had been on the board at the New Hampton School since 1978. School officials said the couple often flew to board meetings.

“Herman was the architect for many of our buildings on campus,” said Peter Galletly, the board’s chairman. “He was incredibly generous with his time and thoughtful of the student experience at New Hampton. Our hearts go out to the Hassinger family.”

Authorities said the single-engine plane was headed south about 1:10 p.m. when one of its wings struck a light pole, causing it to nosedive just north of Exit 10. It’s still unclear why, according to state police Lt. Chris Wagner, who said officials don’t know whether the pilot of the A36 Beechcraft was trying to make an emergency landing on the interstate.

Officials haven’t confirmed who was flying the plane.

As investigators filled the scene yesterday afternoon, one body lay covered by a white cloth in a wooded median a few yards away; another body remained in the small plane.

There didn’t immediately appear to be any witnesses to the plane’s descent or crash, only one person who saw the craft after it had come to a rest against the guardrail, according to Wagner. He said the plane was largely intact except for heavy front-end damage.

The same plane was involved in a 2010 accident at Boire Field in Nashua, according to FAA records.

In that incident, the plane’s landing gear malfunctioned, leading it to skid across the runway for about 700 feet. Initial inspections showed the malfunction might have been caused by a bent rod that prevented the landing gear from locking in place, the Nashua Telegraph reported at the time. Herman Hassinger was the pilot and was not injured in that crash.

FAA records show the same plane was also involved in a hard landing in 1993 at the Falmouth Airpark on Cape Cod and was blown off a Texas runway in 1979 while taxiing behind a larger plane. The records don’t show who the pilot was during those incidents.

FAA authorities said the plane had taken off from Nashua and was headed to Laconia when it crashed. A spokeswoman for the Rhode Island Airport Corp. said it had left Block Island Airport sometime yesterday.

Only the plane’s striped tail remained visible to passing vehicles yesterday after officials covered the rest with a blue tarp. About 3:30 p.m., authorities pulled the tarp fully over the craft, as responders went in and out of the concealed area. Crews remained there into the evening.

Department of Transportation employees arrived in the afternoon and began picking up the large lamp heads and pieces of metal that had fallen from the light post and were scattered in the grass.

Investigators from the Bureau of Aeronautics, FAA and National Transportation Safety Board are all investigating the crash. Wagner said the plane would be left there for a while as officials try to piece together what happened. Herman Hassinger, according to a biography in a 2006 edition of Who’s Who in America, was born in Germany and has three children with Doris. He listed aviation as an interest.

(The Associated Press contributed to this story.)

(Tricia L. Nadolny can be reached at 369-3306 or tnadolny@cmonitor.com or on Twitter at @tricia_nadolny.)