William Krens, 77, of Hillsboro, died after his 1979 fixed-wing, single-engine Beech aircraft crashed in a wooded area near the 35000 block of Charles Town Pike near the West Virginia border.
Virginia State Police said Krens, the pilot and sole occupant, had taken off just moments before from a nearby private airstrip.
The FAA and NTSB were notified. The cause of the crash remains under investigation.
William Vitka is a Digital Editor and reporter for WTOP.com. He's been in the news industry for over a decade. Before joining WTOP, he worked for CBS News, Stuff Magazine, The New York Post and wrote a variety of books—about a dozen of them, with more to come.