Plane Crash Near Aberdeen Proving Ground Kills Army General

An Army general died when his small private plane crashed near Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland on Tuesday, according to the service.

Maj. Gen. Anthony Potts, who recently oversaw the Army's Program Executive Office for Command, Control and Communications-Tactical, or PEO C3T, died when the single-engine Piper PA-28 Cherokee airplane he was piloting crashed in Havre de Grace, Maryland. He was the only person in the craft.

It's unclear what caused the crash, and the incident was still under investigation Friday.

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"Maj. Gen. Potts completed over 36 years of distinguished service," Bryce Dubee, an Army spokesperson, said in a statement to Military.com. "The entire U.S. Army is grateful for his service, and we extend our deepest and most sincere condolences to the entire Potts family."

Potts, 59, led a 1,600-person team at Aberdeen Proving Ground, a research site for the service, in the development of upgraded body armor, weapons and network technology, among other efforts in the Army's move to redesign its force by next decade.

Those efforts are part of a shift from counterterrorism operations to new equipment and doctrine for conventional warfare.

Potts, a father of two, was commissioned into the Army as an aviation officer in 1987.

He served much of his early career as an AH-64 Apache pilot. His awards include the Legion of Merit, Meritorious Service Medal and Air Medal with Valor.

-- Steve Beynon can be reached at Steve.Beynon@military.com. Follow him on Twitter @StevenBeynon.

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