Chen Wei, the first Chinese pilot fly around the world in a single-engine plane, was killed in an air crash in the United States on Thursday, according to a Fox News report.
![Chen Wei, the first Chinese person to pilot a single-engine plane on a round-the-world journey, pictured on July 12, 2011. [File photo: VCG]](http://img1.zhytuku.meldingcloud.com/images/zhycms_chinaplus/20181222/be3071e9-ca63-4de8-967d-d9f834250ce5.jpg?x-oss-process=image/resize,w_650)
Chen was one of the four people killed when a private jet heading from Atlanta to Memphis crashed in a northwest Atlanta park.
According to fireman Cortez Stafford who was at the scene of the crash, the plane was almost entirely destroyed in the accident, except the tail of the plane.
![An investigator inspects the scene of the crash in northwest Atlanta that took the lives of Chen Wei and three other passengers on Thursday, December 20, 2018.[Photo: AP]](http://img0.zhytuku.meldingcloud.com/images/zhycms_chinaplus/20181222/af2c4c59-290e-4267-a4dc-e8581d3c2e7a.jpg?x-oss-process=image/resize,w_650)
One witness told a reporter that it looked like the pilot was trying to avoid crashing into a heavily populated area.
Chen Wei was born in 1971. The 47-year-old pilot studied at the University of Memphis before becoming a well-known local business leader. His feat of flying around the world in single-engine plane took place in 2011.
