Now federal officials are investigating how it happened.

The pilot, Kirk Aragon of Apex, was taken to UNC Hospital in Chapel Hill after the crash. He died Sunday evening from injuries sustained in the crash.

Nobody else was on the plane, police said.

The crash happened about 1 p.m. on Breezewood Road, which backs up to the airport's runway, according to Sanford police.

"We don't know what caused it at this point," Jim Peters, a spokesman with the Federal Aviation Administration in New York said Sunday. "It's ... too early to even make that kind of determination."

Aragon was a registered private pilot with the FAA. His certificate was issued Jan. 1, 2010, according to the agency's website.

FAA records show Aragon flew a Velocity RG airplane built in 1996.

According to the company's website, Velocity offers plane kits that can be built in a two-car garage.

The company says its accident rate is similar to other private planes "once past the first 10 hours of flight time."

Planes built from kits are common, and must get FAA approval to fly, Peters said.

The airport, formerly known as the Sanford-Lee County Regional Airport, is a reliever airport for Raleigh-Durham International.

It's popular with corporate flights heading into the Triangle.

Efforts to reach Aragon's family were unsuccessful Sunday.

On the professional networking site LinkedIn, a Triangle man with the name Kirk Aragon is listed as a senior consultant at Hewlett Packard and an alumnus of the University of Alabama.