Erin Storm, a contestant on Season 12 of ABC’s hit reality series The Bachelor and a pilot, has died, according to multiple media reports.
She passed away in a plane crash Monday in Los Angeles.
According to the reports, Storm was flying an Airborne XT-912 light-sport, weight-shift control plane and crashed soon after taking off.
Erin was flying out of Hawthorne Municipal Airport.
Byron Mayes, a Best Drilling and Pump, Inc. employee who was working on a tank near the airport, told NBC that he saw the crash.
“It looked like the plane veered up, lost control and hit a couple feet away from the truck, a couple feet away,” he described.
“All of a sudden, my partner started yelling, ‘Watch out, there’s a plane coming!"” Mayes added, noting that he ran over immediately.
Mayes and his coworkers pulled Erin out of the burning aircraft, with her legs on fire and Storm already in a state of cardiac arrest.
When rescue crews arrived, she was transported to a trauma center, and the pilot for Pacific Blue Air was pronounced dead soon after.
According to witnesses, Storm was wearing in a blue Pacific Blue Air (an aircraft training facility) jumpsuit for what would be her final flight.
Storm competed on Matt Grant’s season of the show in 2008; Shayne Lamas was the final rose recipient from the British star that year.
The Venice, Calif., resident was 40 years old.
It’s been a tragic few years for Bachelor Nation, which has also endured the tragic suicides of Lex McAllister and Gia Allemand.
Eric Hill, a contestant on The Bachelorette, died in a paragliding accident not long after appearing on Andi Dorfman’s season.
R.I.P.
