Replica of Howard Hughes plane crashes in Yellowstone YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. (AP) - Authorities on Tuesday identified a plane crash victim as an Oregon man who helped design and build the craft, a replica of a 1935 racer flown by oil and film industry tycoon Howard Hughes.James Wright, 53, of Cottage Grove, Ore., died when the plane, a replica of the Hughes H-1, crashed about 6:30 p.m. Monday in Midway Geyser Basin about five miles north of Old Faithful, park officials said.The plane was en route from an air show in Oshkosh, Wis., to Oregon, Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Karen Byrd said. It apparently had been having gear problems earlier in the flight.The plane approached from the west about treetop level just south of the basin parking area, officials said. It apparently struck on the west side of the Firehole River and came to rest on the east near the main park road, which was closed for about five hours after the crash.The airplane burst into flame upon impact, but the fire was quickly extinguished by park staff. No one on the ground was hurt.Debris was strewn throughout the area, and the engine and a wing landed in the river. Some fuel leaked into the water and on the ground.Yellowstone officials said the engine was removed from the river Monday night to prevent further leakage and that cleanup of spilled fuel would be done as quickly as possible.Several park visitors witnessed the crash and phoned 911.Because the road was not reopened until midnight, some RVs were allowed to park in the Old Faithful parking lot for the night.Federal investigators were expected to arrive in the park Tuesday.Hughes designed the original H-1, which is on display at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. In 1935, Hughes flew that aircraft to a speed record and for a brief period was the fastest person ever to pilot an airplane.The replica was built from scratch in 2002 by a five-man team that included Wright. The team spent thousands of man-hours studying photographs, drawings, test results and measurements of the original plane, according to a Web site detailing the reproduction work.Wright, who had been flying planes for 30 years, stopped in Gillette to refuel about 90 minutes before the crash.''The air's thin enough here that the propeller gets stuck in low gear,'' he told The Gillette News-Record. ''I'm just trying to get home.''Wright had been having problems switching gears as he flew over northeastern Wyoming but had planned to stop in Gillette to refuel anyway, the newspaper reported.Shortly before flying out of Gillette-Campbell County Airport, he said he was going to attempt to take off in second gear. Whether gear problems were responsible for the crash is unclear. The FAA said the cause is not known.Wright was scheduled to appear with the H-1 at the 44th Annual Northwest Antique Airplane Fly-In in McMinnville, Ore., Aug. 15-17. It was one appearance among many on a busy itinerary of air shows during the summer and fall.When Wright decided last year that he wanted to build a reproduction, the Washington museum gave him access to the Hughes plane.''The director of the Smithsonian told me that if he could have one plane in the Smithsonian, it wouldn't be the Wright (Brothers) flyer,'' he said. ''It would be the Hughes racer.''Construction took five workers from the Wright Machine Tool Co., which Wright owned, and seven major subcontractors 35,000 collective hours. The work cost Wright nearly $2 million.When asked the why he wanted to undertake such an eccentric and ambitious project, Wright said, ''Because it's the best plane that's ever been built.''He later said with a chuckle, ''Yeah, it's real silly.''