Veteran New Orleans television anchorwoman Nancy Parker died in an airplane crash near Lakefront Airport Friday that also killed a veteran stunt pilot and flight instructor.

Parker, an award-winning journalist at WVUE Fox 8 who covered South Louisiana for more than two decades, was killed while working on a feature story about pilot Franklin J.P. Augustus, according to multiple sources. Augustus was an acrobatic air show pilot and New Orleans-based member of a group that honored the Tuskegee Airmen, and had taken Parker up in his aerobatic plane.

Fox 8 anchor Lee Zurik announced Parker’s death during a break in programming. Choking back tears, Zurik said his colleague was on the plane “doing what she loved, telling a story.”

The plane went down in an empty field in the 7300 block of Jourdan Road Friday afternoon and erupted in fire, according to Collin Arnold, the Director of New Orleans’ Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. First responders extinguished the blaze quickly, he said, but they were not able to rescue the two people on board.

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Dozens of emergency officials were picking their way around the crash site and the remnants of the plane through the afternoon.

Police kept reporters at a distance. But it was evident that little recognizable from the aircraft remained except a bent and charred metal frame, which had come to rest along a chain link fence on the edge of a field by the Industrial Canal, less than a mile from the runways of the Lakefront Airport.

Parker was at the airport flying in Augustus’s propeller-driven airplane, which according to media reports he used as one of the world’s few African-American stunt pilots.

Gerald Herbert, a photographer with a hangar at the airport, spoke with Augustus earlier Friday. The pilot told Herbert he was being interviewed for Parker’s story and would be flying later that day, over the airport’s designated practice area.

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As of Friday evening, officials were still piecing together the details of what led to the crash. Arnold said officials would be "protecting and securing" the area, per the request of the Federal Aviation Administration, which is sending investigators from its Baton Rouge office. An investigator from the National Transportation Safety Board is expected to arrive Saturday to begin an investigation.

Arnold could not confirm the status of the flight or what may have led to the crash.

"That will all be a part of the investigation," he said. "It's just a very tragic day."

Parker, 53, started as a television journalist at WTVM in Columbus, Georgia, before moving on to Montgomery, Alabama, Baton Rouge and finally New Orleans. She won multiple honors for her reporting, including five Emmy Awards.

FOX 8 Vice President and General Manager Tim Ingram called Parker “a joy to work with” who through thousands of stories made a difference in the lives the people she reported on.

“Today we lost a wonderful journalist and remarkable friend, the New Orleans television community lost a true treasure, but beyond that, her family lost a wife, a mother and daughter,” Ingram said. “Our thoughts and prayers are with them.”

Augustus, a veteran pilot, described himself several decades ago as “the world’s only black civilian air-show acrobatic pilot.”

According to news reports on his career, he began flying at 19, and was hooked on stunt flying after taking classes on advanced flight instruction in the late 1970s.

Augustus performed in air shows and also served as a flight instructor. He was president of the Lake Charles Chapter of the Tuskegee Airmen Inc., which honors the famous African-American pilots from World War II.

The crash is the second deadly incident involving a small plane in New Orleans in recent years.

In 2016, a small Cessna 172 with a pilot and two sightseeing passengers on board crashed into Lake Pontchartrain near Lakefront Airport. The pilot and one passenger aboard drowned as the airplane sank into the lake, but a passing boat rescued one passenger.

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