Pottawattamie County Sheriff Jeff Danker is expected to release sometime today (Friday), the name of the pilot who died late Thursday morning, after his plane crashed into the median between the north and southbound lanes of Interstate 29, near the northwest side of Council Bluffs.

Sheriff’s officials told the Daily NonPareil Thursday, that the pilot, flying a Piper Malibu Meridian single-engine plane, left Eppley Airfield at 11:51 a.m. Shortly after takeoff, the man radioed back to Eppley that he was having plane troubles and requested an emergency landing. A motorist who witnessed the crash said the plane was flying low, parallel above the railroad tracks, when it pitched hard right and the wing clipped a power line. Authorities said three lines were cut during the collision. One of the lines landed across I-29 northbound, causing one lane to be closed for about an hour.

The witness, an off-duty police officer and former firefighter, said the elderly male pilot had no pulse when he checked him after arriving on the scene. He was believed to be the lone passenger in the plane. The pilot was still in the plane hours after the crash as authorities waited for investigators with the Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board to arrive.