
Authorities have identified the pilot of a small banner plane that crashed just outside of Ocean City as a 23-year-old man from Dorchester County.
Maryland state police say Rhodesdale resident Garrett Colona was the lone occupant of a small piper super cub banner plane that crashed onto the fairway of an abandoned golf course Thursday in Berlin, just a few miles from Ocean City.
Investigators believe that Colona was in the process of dropping one banner and picking up another, when his single engine plane faltered, causing the left wing to clip a tree bringing down the plane and claiming his life.
Colona's employer, Ocean Aerial Ads, has been flying banner planes in the region since 1982 and operates out of an airfield at a small family farm in Berlin. The company is no stranger to plane crashes, though. FAA records say the company has had nine crashes resulting in four fatalities since 1983.

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