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Grand Teton National Park rangers and fire personnel examine the wreckage of an ultra light aircraft that crashed Monday, June 27, 2005 just north of Jackson Hole Airport near Jackson, Wyo. The pilot, John T. Walton, a billionaire son of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton and a member of the company’s board was killed in the crash. (AP Photo/Jackson Hole News & Record, Bradley J. Boner)

The Associated Press reports:

BENTONVILLE, Ark. –John Walton, the billionaire son of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton and a member of the company’s board, died Monday in a plane crash in Wyoming.

Walton, 58, of Jackson, Wyo., was piloting an ultralight that crashed shortly after takeoff from the Jackson Hole Airport in Grand Teton National Park, the company said. He was pronounced dead at the scene, and the cause of the afternoon crash was not known, officials said.

The plane was an experimental ultralight aircraft with a small, gasoline-powered engine and wings wrapped in fabric similar to heavy-duty sail cloth, officials said.

In March, Forbes Magazine listed John Walton as No. 11 on its list of the world’s richest people with a net worth of $18.2 billion. He was tied with his brother Jim, one spot behind his bother Rob, and just ahead of his sister Alice and his mother Helen.

Walton joined the board of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in 1992, but did not work for the company.

“We’re sad that John Walton, who was well-known and much-loved in this valley, died doing something that he loved to do, which was fly aircraft,” said Joan Anzelmo, a spokeswoman for Grand Teton National Park.

“I saw parts of it,” she said of the plane. “I didn’t realize what I was seeing at first. It was so lightweight it looked like a giant model airplane.”

Anzelmo said officials notified the Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board.

“Because this is a homemade, non-registered, experimental aircraft, at least today they told us there was not going to be an investigation,” she said. Grand Teton rangers will conduct their own probe, as is done with any major accident in the park, she said.

Wal-Mart spokeswoman Mona Williams said the company notified its employees worldwide of Walton’s death.

Walton was an Army veteran who served with the Green Berets as a medic during the Vietnam War. He was awarded the Silver Star for saving the lives of several members of his unit while under enemy fire, according to the company. He attended the College of Wooster in Wooster, Ohio, and served as a board member of the Walton Family Foundation.

The company said Walton pursued a variety of business interests including working as a crop duster in the 1970s and building boats in the 1980s. More recently, he had formed a holding company, True North, to oversee various business interests.

Walton is survived by his wife, Christy, and son, Luke; his mother, Helen; two brothers, Rob and Jim; and a sister, Alice.

Funeral arrangements were not immediately announced.

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