The pilot of a small, single-engine plane was killed when it crashed in the edge of a field around 3 p.m. Wednesday shortly after taking off from the Statesboro Bulloch County Airport.

As of Wednesday evening, the pilot, a man who local authorities believed was from out of state and may have been a mechanic on a test flight or delivery trip of an experimental plane, had not been positively identified.

The crash occurred in an area off Georgia Highway 24 not far from its intersection with Five Chop Road.  Some sources named another road in that vicinity, Sand Spur Road, but it is a private road not accessible to the public, said Capt. Todd Hutchens of the Bulloch County Sheriff’s Office.

“What we understand is the pilot was taking a test flight, was test-flighting this single-engine, single-person plane, and unfortunately the plane went down in the edge of a field, and the pilot actually was killed in the crash,” Hutchens said.

Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration were expected to arrive in Statesboro by Thursday afternoon, he said, at which time the Sheriff’s Office will turn the crash site over to them, he said.

“We are going to be securing this area until the FAA and the NTSB show up,” said Hutchens.

The site appears to be roughly two miles straight-line distance from the airport.

Although the plane was severely damaged on impact, there was no fire, he said. In addition to sheriff’s personnel, units from the Bulloch County Fire Department and Emergency Medical Service had responded to the call.

Bulloch County Coroner Chuck Francis also went, and confirmed that the pilot died in the crash.

As of 7 p.m. Wednesday, Francis said he had a theory as to the pilot’s identity but had yet to confirm it or make any notification of next of kin. The deceased man had no identification on him, the coroner said, adding that he had heard a name from someone and a possible state of origin.

The body would be transferred to a Georgia Bureau of Investigation lab for autopsy, with a report to go to federal investigators, Francis said.