Urbana plane crash claims one life
By DERRICK EK THE LEADER

ERIC WENSEL/THE LEADER A door from the Cessna 150 that crashed in Urbana last week lays twisted among other wreckage in woods at the crash site.

URBANA - A Cornell University professor was kills Tuesday morning when the plane he was piloting crashed into the hills near Keuka Lake.

Sergio Servetto, 39, of Ithaca, was killed upon impact when his plane went down near the intersection of County Route 113 and Longwell Road, in the town of Urbana, according to state police at Bath.

The crash site is located in a rural area a few miles east of the village of Hammondsport and Keuka Lake's southern tip.

There were no passengers in the plane, a single-engine, two-seat Cessna 150, authorities said.

Servetto was an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Cornell University in Ithaca, according to an obituary provided by the university's press office.

He had often spoken of his love for flying, and had dreamed of owning an airplane, according to the obituary. He had recently purchased the plane in Michigan and was flying it back to Ithaca when the accident happened, the university said.

The crash occurred at approximately 4 a.m. Tuesday, according to Dennis Diaz, an investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board.

Servetto had stopped at an airport in Jamestown to refuel about an hour before the crash, according to James Peters, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration.

When the aircraft did not reach Ithaca on schedule, the FAA issued an alert to emergency personnel within a 50- mile radius, Peters said.

The wreckage was spotted at 6 p.m. Tuesday by state police searching the area in a helicopter.

Although Servetto had been flying east toward Ithaca, he was headed northwest when he crashed. The plane went down in a grassy field about 100 yards from the road, tore through some bushes, and crashed into a group of trees.

The Cessna was ripped apart and debris was strewn everywhere, but the wreckage did not appear to be charred by flames.

Leslie Stoeckel, who lives across the road from the crash site, said she was awakened by a loud droning noise Tuesday morning, but didn't hear any kind of explosion, and the droning noise ceased a few moments later.

"I thought I was dreaming," Stoeckel said. "I thought, 'That couldn't have been a plane flying that low.' I was pretty groggy, and I fell back asleep. Now, I wish I had gotten up and taken a look around. But I don't think I would have seen anything, anyway."

Statepolice, the Hammondsport Fire Department, the state Department of Environmental Conservation and Steuben County sheriff's deputies responded to the crash site.

Servetto's body was taken to the Monroe County Medical Examiner's Office in Rochester for an autopsy.

Officials from the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board were called to the scene.

The investigation is still in the early stages, Diaz said.

He didn't speculate on what might have caused the crash.

"We always look at what we call 'man, machine, environment,'" he said.

Along with examining the crash site, Diaz explained, he will look at other factors such as Servetto's flight training and experience, the plane's maintenance history, and the weather conditions at the time of the crash.

Diaz said the wreckage will be left in place until his on-site investigation is completed, probably sometime today. A preliminary report will be released by the NTSB within 10 days, Diaz said, but it will be six to 10 months before the probable cause of the accident is determined.

Although Servetto had reportedly just purchased the Cessna, it is registered to Scott Peterson of Cadillac, Mich., according to the FAA.

Servetto, a native of Argentina who joined Cornell's faculty in 2001, leaves behind a wife, Viviana Sitz, and two young sons, Alejandro and Luciano, according to the university.

He earned a master's degree and Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, an d worked in Switzerland for several years before coming to Ithaca. Aside from his teaching duties, Servetto did research in his field and was in the process of writing a book and a major paper, according to Cornell.