Police: Reports of Kinderhook plane crash 'unfounded'

State police, as well as other officials, searched the area but did not find the reported crash.

“Troopers went to the area and did not find anything, so it was unfounded,” New York State Police Executive Director of Public Information Beau Duffy said Thursday.

State police searched the area on foot, and also used drones attempting to find the potential crash, but they did not discover anything, Duffy said.

Further investigation by police found a C-130 plane from the Air National Guard's 106th Rescue Wing was flying over the area at the time the incident was reported. 

"The Air National Guard confirmed that their aircraft was accounted for," Duffy said. "No missing aircraft have been reported."

Officials from the Tri-Village Fire Company also assisted in the search of the area.

“We were all searching," said Rick Degroff, chief of the Tri-Village Fire Company. We did searching of our own on FlightRadar. We talked to Albany Airport and they identified an aircraft they normally wouldn’t talk to.”

Air traffic control at Albany International Airport did not have any additional information on the aircraft, but FlightRadar24, a live aircraft tracking website, showed a military aircraft doing low-level flights in the area, Duffy said.

When the call came in to Columbia County 911, fire officials were dispatched to a potential downed aircraft, Degroff said.

“The caller stated it sounded like a plane in distress,” he said.

Another individual who called Columbia County 911 also reported an aircraft in distress, and they thought it had gone down, Degroff said.

The Tri-Village fire company was dispatched at 8:35 p.m., and searched until about 10:10 p.m., Degroff said.

“We did our due diligence,” he said.

Degroff also lives in the area of the reported incident, and said he did not hear the aircraft.

“I didn’t hear a blessed thing, so I was a little thrown off when the call came in,” he said.

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