UPDATE: Crop duster crashes, results in death of 55-year-old
Amanda Becker
Star-Times
On Thursday, Juneau County Coroner Howard Fischer said an autopsy on Robert Kazmierczak, 55, was conducted Wednesday by a forensic pathologist at Hess Memorial Hospital.
According to Fischer, the autopsy revealed that the death of Kazmierczak, who died after his small engine Piper crashed Monday, was accidental. The preliminary results from the autopsy indicated that he died from multiple traumatic injuries received in the crash. He added that no medical conditions were noted that may have contributed to the accident.
"My husband heard two loud bangs and then didn't hear anything," New Lisbon resident Lynn Martin said about a plane crash that occured Monday evening resulting in the death of a 55-year-old Lodi man.
At approximately 5:30 p.m., the Juneau County Sheriff's Department was dispatched to a field north of New Lisbon on Hwy. 80 to investigate a report of an aircraft going down. According to the Sheriff's Department, a small engine Piper crashed while crop dusting.
The pilot, Robert Kazmierczak, was transported to Hess Memorial Hospital in Mauston, where he was later pronounced dead.
The crash remains under investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the Juneau County Sheriff's Department and the Juneau County Coroner's Office. On Tuesday, the FAA investigated the scene, and the plane was transported to a hanger where FAA will continue to investigate. According to the FAA, the cause of the crash is unknown, and it may take several months before the investigation is complete. Martin, who lives diagonally from where the crash occured, said Kazmierczak had been fertilizing area fields all afternoon and it's "quite a mystery" what happened.