Cape Cod History

2001: Computer company CEO dies in plane crash in Vineyard Sound. 1993:Fishing for Trout on Cape Cod

2001: Attempting to reach Falmouth Airpark when plane went down

On this day in 2001, David R. Burke Sr., CEO and chairman of the high-tech company CeleXx Corp., was killed when the twin-engine Beech Baron BE55 he was piloting crashed in Vineyard Sound off Bristol and Menauhant beaches.

Burke, 57, a Tewksbury resident, was flying the four-seater from Lawrence to Falmouth Airpark, shown in the map at right, where he was building a home. Burke had also owned a condominium in Falmouth. Burke, who was married and the father of several grown children, was alone in the plane when it crashed.

Burke's body was recovered by Falmouth Fire and Rescue dive team members and brought to the Coast Guard Station in Woods Hole, according to a story the following day by Paula Peters of the Cape Cod Times.

 It was the first plane crash associated with the Falmouth Airpark, a residential airpark built by a New York developer in the mid-1980s around an air strip constructed in the 1940s for small aircraft, according to the Times.

 Burke was president and CEO of Computer Marketplace, a Tewksbury business he founded in 1983. The company provided networking solutions, computer telephone integration and systems integration for Fortune 1000 companies, government agencies and schools. In 1999 the company was bought by CeleXx and Burke was named chairman and CEO of CeleXx.

The National Transportation Safety Board later determined the cause of the crash to be "incapacitation of the pilot for undetermined reasons."

1993:Fishing for Trout on Stillwater of Golden Cape Cod Ponds

Lakes and ponds are little noted in the voluminous centuries-old literature devoted to fly fishing for trout, but they offer first-rate angling that is every bit as fascinating as that experienced on moving water.

I became a devotee of stillwater trout fishing nearly four decades ago when I lived in west-central New Hampshire. There was only one decent good-sized trout river within 25 miles, but excellent trout ponds abounded, many of them in wilderness settings that could be reached only by hiking.

In late October, an urge to revisit some of Cape Cod's trout ponds became too strong to resist. These ponds range in size from a few acres to more than 700 acres and they are one of the region's seldom-mentioned charms. In fall, the angling pressure on these waters -- many of them spring-fed kettlehole ponds left by the last glacier -- is minimal. The Massachusetts trout season is open all year, although the daily bag limit is reduced from Sept. 11 to April 14... Read the rest of the story in the NY Times in 1993 here.