Erin Storm, a contestant on Season 12 of ABC’s hit reality series The Bachelor and a pilot, has died, according to multiple media reports. She passed away in a plane crash Monday in Los Angeles. Little is known about what caused the fatal accident. According to reports, Storm was flying an Airborne XT-912 light-sport, weight-shift control plane that crashed soon after taking off. Erin was flying out of Hawthorne Municipal Airport. Byron Mayes, a Best Drilling and Pump, Inc. employee who was working on a tank near the airport, told NBC that he saw the crash. “It looked like the plane veered up, lost control and hit a couple feet away from the truck, a couple feet away,” he described. “All of a sudden, my partner started yelling, ‘Watch out, there’s a plane coming!'” Mayes added, noting that he ran over immediately. Mayes and his coworkers pulled Erin out of the burning aircraft , with her legs on fire and Storm already in a state of cardiac arrest. When rescue crews arrived, she was transported to a trauma center, and the pilot for Pacific Blue Air was pronounced dead soon after. According to witnesses, Storm was wearing in a blue Pacific Blue Air (an aircraft training facility) jumpsuit for what would be her final flight. Storm competed on Matt Grant’s season of the show in 2008; Shayne Lamas was the final rose recipient from the British star that year. The Venice, Calif., resident was 40 years old. It’s been a tragic few years for Bachelor Nation, which also endured the tragic suicide of contestant Lex McAllister earlier this winter. In 2013, model and popular contestant on both The Bachelor and Bachelor Pad, Gia Allemand, also took her own life in New Orleans. Eric Hill, a contestant on The Bachelorette, died in a paragliding accident not long after appearing on Andi Dorfman’s season in 2014. R.I.P. View Slideshow: Celebrities Who Passed Away in 2016: Gone, But Not Forgotten
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Erin Storm Dies: Former Bachelor Hopeful, Pilot Killed in Plane Crash
