Crossfield's single-engine Cessna disappeared Wednesday morning while on a flight from Prattville, Ala., to Manassas, Va., the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported. The newspaper said air traffic controllers had lost radar and radio contact with the plane at 11:15 a.m. Thunderstorms were reported in the area at the time.

Best-known as the man who first reached Mach 2, twice the speed of sound, on Nov. 20, 1953, in a Douglas D-558-II Skyrocket, Crossfield was a member of the legendary group of test pilots at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., immortalized in Tom Wolfe's best-selling book, The Right Stuff, and in the movie of the same name. He reached Mach 2, or about 1,300 miles per hour, 50 years after the first flight of the Wright brothers.

Born Oct. 2, 1921, in Berkeley, Calif., he joined the U.S. Navy during World War II, where he became a fighter pilot and flight instructor.

After the war, Crossfield worked at the University of Washington's Kirsten Wind Tunnel while earning bachelor's and master's degrees in aeronautical engineering. In 1950, he joined the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics' High-Speed Flight Station -now NASA's Dryden Flight Research Facility - at Edwards as an aeronautical research pilot.

Over the next five years, Crossfield flew nearly all of the experimental aircraft tested at Edwards, including the X-1, XF-92, X-4, X-5, D-558-I and the D-558-II Skyrocket. He flew a total of 99 flights in the X-1 and D-558-II, giving him more experience with rocket-powered aircraft than any other pilot in the world.

"In the days of the research airplane program, things were somewhat different than the bureaucracy that we find ourselves in today," Crossfield said of his experiences at Edwards in a 1988 interview with John W. Alexanders of Aviation Week and Space Technology. "For instance, there could be a day where I would do an X-1 launch early in the morning, fly the X-4 over lunch hour, and do a D-558-II launch in the afternoon. That was not a typical day, but there were days of that type. We were very versatile in our operation in those days."

He left Edwards and the military to join North American Aviation in 1955, where he became the company's chief engineering test pilot, playing a major role in the design and development of the X-15, still the fastest aircraft in history.

North American hired Crossfield to demonstrate the X-15's airworthiness at speeds ranging up to Mach 3 - an extremely hazardous assignment, because both the aircraft and its systems were unproven.

On June 8, 1959, Crossfield completed the X-15's first flight, executing an unpowered glide from 37,550 feet, after being dropped from a B-52 carrier aircraft.

On Sept. 17 of that year, he completed the X-15's first powered flight, but because of delays in the development of its 57,000-pound thrust XLR-99 rocket engine, the early flights used a pair of XLR-11 engines.

Shortly after the drop on his third flight, one of the engines exploded. Unable to jettison his propellants, Crossfield brought the X-15 down to the rock-hard desert salt flats at Edwards in an emergency landing. The excessive load from the full fuel tanks caused the aircraft's lengthy fuselage to collapse just behind the cockpit, but Crossfield was uninjured and the airplane was repaired.

On June 8, 1960, Crossfield was seated in the cockpit of the third X-15 for a static test of its XLR-99 engine when a malfunctioning valve caused a catastrophic explosion. Once again, he was uninjured and the aircraft was rebuilt.

On Nov. 15, 1960, he completed the X-15's first powered flight with the XLR-99 engine. Two flights later, on Dec. 6, 1960, he concluded North American's demonstration program in his final flight.

Altogether, he completed 16 captive carry - mated to the B-52 - flights, one glide and 13 powered flights in the X-15.

Crossfield remained at North American as systems director of test and quality assurance in the company's Space and Information Systems Division, where he oversaw quality, reliability engineering and systems test activities for such programs as the Apollo command and service modules and the Saturn II booster.

In 1966, he became the division's technical director for research engineering and test. In 1967, he joined Eastern Airlines, serving as a division vice president for research and development and, subsequently, as a staff vice president working with U.S. military and civilian agencies on air traffic control technologies.

In 1974 and 1975, he worked for Hawker-Siddeley as a senior vice president supporting HS 146 activities in the United States. In 1977, he joined the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science and Technology where he served, until his retirement in 1993, as a technical adviser on all aspects of civil aviation research and development and became one of the nation's leading advocates for a reinvigorated research airplane program.

Crossfield also served as a special consultant for the attempt, on Dec. 17, 2003, to re-enact the Wright brothers' flight on the 100th anniversary of their feat near Kitty Hawk, N.C. He trained four pilots for the flight attempt in a replica of the Wright Flyer, but poor weather prevented the takeoff.

"Scott Crossfield was first and foremost a true pioneer in aviation," Gen. John R. Dailey, director of the National Air & Space Museum, told reporters Thursday upon hearing the news of his death.

Crossfield was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1983, the International Space Hall of Fame in 1988, the Aerospace Walk of Honor in 1990 and the Virginia Aviation Hall of Fame in 1998. He also received the Lawrence Sperry Award, Octave Chanute Award, Iven C. Kincheloe Award, Harmon International Trophy, and the Collier Trophy.

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