Castor, Hadley John – 1942-1973

CASTOR

Posted By: Diana Wagner
Date: 3/29/2025 at 13:20:23

Iowan Killed; Crop Dusting Airplane Crashes in Field
Cartersville, Iowa (AP) – A Rockwell man died near this southern Cerro Gordo County town Tuesday when the crop dusting plane he was piloting crashed in a field.
Hadley Castor, 31, died in the crash about three miles southeast of Cartersville. Its cause was not immediately known, but the Federal Aviation Administration was investigating.
Castor – principal of the Rockwell-Swaledale Elementary School – was flying for Aero Farm Service of rural Rockwell as a summer job.
A witness, Ted Bielefeld, who was on the ground directing Castor’s spraying, said the plane was in a counter-clockwise turn at low altitude when it appeared to stall and lose altitude.
The plane dropped from view behind a cornfield, and Bielefeld said he then heard a noise like a shotgun. He said he did not know if the noise was before or after the impact.
Bielefeld said the next thing he saw was smoke from a nearby soybean field. He said he ran to the crash scene where the plane was burning.
An autopsy was ordered on Castor’s body, which was severely burned.
Source: The Newton (IA) Daily News; Wednesday, August 15, 1973, Page 2, col. 4