Pilot Killed In Crop Duster Crash

BETHEL ISLAND, Calif. (AP) -- Authorities say a pilot has been killed after his crop-duster clipped its wing on a tower and crashed in a remote area of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

The Contra Costa County sheriff's department has identified the victim as 58-year-old Stephen Allen, of Courtland, south of Sacramento.

The plane went down north of Bethel Island, an isolated agricultural zone about 45 miles east of San Francisco.

The Contra Costa Times reports that the Coast Guard, the sheriff's marine patrol and a California Highway Patrol helicopter were dispatched to the area.

Investigators from the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board also were summoned to the site.