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Veteran US television news anchor killed in stunt plane

Nancy Parker, 53, was killed while shooting a story in a stunt plane.

Nancy Parker, 53, was killed while shooting a story in a stunt plane. Photo: Twitter

A veteran American female TV news anchor has been remembered as a “master of her craft” after she was killed in a stunt plane accident outside New Orleans.

Nancy Parker, 53, who worked as a journalist for WVUE Fox 8 News for 27 years, was killed on Friday alongside pilot Franklin JP Augustus, after the 1983 Pitts S-2B aircraft she was in caught fire and crashed near a field in east New Orleans just after 3pm on Friday.

Her husband and former newsman Glynn Boyd, a public information officer at the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office described his wife, and mother of their three children, twins Piper and Pierce and son Parker, as an amazing human being.

In a moving Facebook post, he said his “heart was shattered”.

“She had so much to give. So smart, so talented, she was my everything.”

Pilot Mr Augustus was a member of a Louisiana group that honoured Tuskegee Airmen.

Fox 8 News said in a statement: 
”Today we mourn the loss of our longtime colleague and friend Nancy Parker”.

“Details have not been released by authorities, but we can confirm she passed away in a plane crash while covering a story at the New Orleans Lakefront Airport.”

FOX 8 Vice President and General Manager Tim Ingram said Parker was a joy to work with every day.

“The New Orleans television community lost a true treasure, but beyond that, her family lost a wife, a mother and daughter. Our thoughts and prayers are with them.”

A Federal Aviation spokesperson said the plane involved crashed just south of the airport under unknown circumstances.

Alabama-born Parker was a five-time Emmy award-winning journalist who anchored every prime-time news broadcast at WVUE Fox for the past 22 years.

Covering Pope Paul 11’s visit to Saint Louis and the canonisation of St Katherine Drexel in Rome were the highlights of her career, according to Fox8News.

Parker also produced documentaries, wrote several children’s books and worked for major charities including the American Cancer Society.

Fox8 said: “Nancy put her heart and soul into everything she did”.

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