HEDGESVILLE, W.Va. (AP) - Federal investigators say an experimental aircraft may have stalled before it crashed into a house in West Virginia's Eastern Panhandle.

A preliminary report by the National Transportation Safety Board says several witnesses reported that the amateur-built Arion Li pitched up shortly after taking off from a private airfield in Hedgesville. The aircraft then appeared to stall just before it crashed.

The pilot, 70-year-old Harry L. Weber of Danbury, Conn., was taken to a hospital in Virginia, where he was pronounced dead. No one in the house was injured.

The cause of the Oct. 5 crash has not been determined.

The Journal of Martinsburg (http://bit.ly/pWoSsR ) reported the NTSB's preliminary findings in Friday's editions.

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