Plane crash kills Princeton pilot

Kevin Covlin, a father of four daughters and owner of a Princeton gymnasium floor business, died Monday when his plane crashed while taking off from the Princeton airport on a hunting trip to North Dakota.

Covlin's single-engine Piper aircraft crashed west of the airport about 12:45 p.m. and burned briefly, according to aviation officials. He was alone in the plane, except for his hunting dog, which survived.

Authorities have yet to say what led to the crash.

Covlin, 51, who lived in Princeton and raised four daughters with his wife, "was heading out to North Dakota to go hunting, pheasants or ducks," when the plane went down, said Dillon Cariveau, who works at Covlin's FLR Sanders.

Covlin's business, featured last week in an article in the Princeton Union-Eagle, specializes in installing, renovating and maintaining gym floors in Minnesota and four other states.

The article noted that his wife, North Dakota native Debbie Covlin, was an airline pilot until the late 1990s and joined his business just north of Princeton soon after.

The company has installed or refurbished wood floors at the World Food Prize Hall of Laureates in Des Moines, the University of Iowa's main basketball floor in Carver Hawkeye Arena, at Augsburg College and at public schools in Apple Valley, Lakeville, Edina, North St. Paul and elsewhere.