- A doctor accused of impregnating his patients with his own sperm died in a plane crash Sunday.
- The hand-built aircraft fell apart mid-flight, the county sheriff said.
A New York fertility doctor accused of impregnating his patients with his own sperm died in a plane crash over the weekend when the hand-built aircraft he was riding in fell apart mid-air, officials said.
Dr. Morris Wortman, 72, was one of two men killed in an experimental aircraft crash in Yates, New York, Sunday, Orleans County Sheriff Christopher Bourke said in a press release obtained by Insider. The pilot, Earl Luce Jr., was also killed in the crash, Bourke said.
The plane was identified as a Wittman W-5 Buttercup, the National Transportation Safety Board told Insider. The small plane only fits two riders.
The New York Post reported that Luce built the plane. A website that appears to belong to Luce details his experience building replicas of this model of plane.
Bourke said in the news release Monday that "the wings of the aircraft became detached from the fuselage and fell to the ground in an orchard." The plane, without the wings, flew another 1,000-to-1,5000 yards west before crashing, Bourke said.
The NTSB said it opened an investigation into the crash that will look into the site of the incident and obtain witness statements and surveillance video if available, in addition to collecting flight data and communications with air traffic control. A preliminary report is expected as soon as two-to-three weeks, the NTSB said.
In September 2021, a 35-year-old woman who said she was Wortman's biological daughter accused Wortman of using his own sperm to impregnate her mother — a woman she said Wortman treated in the 1980s — without her consent at his Rochester fertility clinic, the Center for Menstrual Disorders, AP reported at the time.
According to the lawsuit, the woman alleged Wortman told her family that the sperm donor was a medical student from the University of Rochester. According to AP, the woman took a genetic test in 2016 that linked her to at least nine half-siblings who were children of the same sperm donor.
The woman accused Wortman and his clinic of medical malpractice, battery, infliction of emotional distress, negligence, fraud, and lack of informed consent.
Since the woman filed her lawsuit, several people have accused Wortman of using his own sperm to inseminate patients in the 1980s, the Democrat and Chronicle reported.