Edgartown Mass. October 6, 2000,  former legislator Charles Yates, his wife and their two young children die in a small plane, Mitsubishi MU-2B-26A crashed in the woods near Martha's Vineyard Airport. Yates was piloting his aircraft, he held a commercial certificate. 

The family, which lived in Princeton, New Jersey, had been headed to the island of Martha's Vineyard to stay at their house in Edgartown. Edgartown police reported that about 10:05 p.m. on Friday the airport tower lost contact with a twin engine Mitsubishi turbo-prop plane piloted by Yates on its final approach. According to a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) inspector, the airplane had departed the Trenton Mercer Airport (TTN), Trenton, New Jersey, about 2101, and proceeded in an easterly direction. The last communication from the airplane to the TTN air traffic control tower was at 2103. The next radio communication from the airplane was received by the Cape Approach Control in the vicinity of MVY.

The Yates requested an instrument flight rules clearance from the approach controller, and he was cleared for the ILS Runway 24 approach at MVY. He was then instructed to contact the MVY air traffic control tower. Yates contacted the MVY control tower and announced that he was on the ILS 24 approach. The tower controller then immediately issued a low altitude alert to the pilot. Yates replied that he was climbing and the tower controller cleared the pilot to land.

Yates acknowledged the landing clearance. The tower controller then queried the pilot on how long he would be staying on the island, and the pilot replied that he would be staying until Monday. No further radio transmissions were received from the airplane. The aircraft crashed in a wooded area about 3/4 mile from the Runway 24 threshold, about 50 feet to the right of the extended centerline. Yates was a chairman of FMS Financial Corp. in Burlington, New Jersey.