Family killed in NC plane crash built a lively farm from scratch, a lifelong dream
From the time he was a little boy, Travis Buchanan dreamed of running his own farm, complete with a stand that sold watermelons, sweet corn and home-grown tomatoes.
When he finished high school, he borrowed his uncle’s equipment, opened a single greenhouse and married Candace, the girlfriend he’d known since kindergarten.
Together they started Buchanan Farms, adding daughter, Aubrey, first and son, Walker, second, growing steadily larger until their Lee County produce operation hosted an annual watermelon festival, strawberry festival and fall festival including a jack-o-lantern shaped corn maze.
They grew so entwined in the community around Sanford that they brought samples of their harvest to Los Charros Mexican restaurant in Broadway, which named a margarita after the Buchanan farm.
So on Tuesday, that entire community mourned the sudden loss of all four Buchanans, killed in a small plane crash outside of Sanford. Travis and Candace were 35; Aubrey, 10; Walker, 9.
“Loved this family so much,” said Kristin Schwader, second-grade teacher at Grace Christian School, in a Facebook post. “So blessed for the daily hugs from sweet Aubrey, and the honor to teach Walker. The community will be a little dimmer now without their light.”
First-generation farmers
The Buchanans started a first-generation farm in Lee County, a gamble guaranteed to bring long hours and heavy expense. In a 2022 profile in The Sanford Herald, Candace Buchanan described building a single greenhouse into six, running the farm and store with Travis’ mother and aunt helping along with both kids.
“For a while each year it was a used tractor, more acres of land leased to tend, a few more tobacco barns,” she told the Herald.
She maintained an active and lively social media presence, hyping not only the many festivals but the arrival of snap beans and Dixie Lee peas, or the 2-for-1 hot dog specials on offer at the farm’s restaurant.
On Travis’ birthday last year, they offered a free watermelon with every purchase. After the strawberry festival, the family turned on the irrigation sprinklers to let kids splash in the mud. The watermelon festival once included a Nerf gun war, and the family posted drone videos to YouTube advertising the fun.
What is cause of Lee County plane crash?
The plane, registered to Travis Buchanan, had taken off from Florida before crashing on its approach to Raleigh Executive Jetport in Lee County.
The cause of the crash is yet unknown. At a Tuesday afternoon news conference, an investigator from the National Transportation Safety Board said the plane reported navigation and engine problems as it approached the airport, The N&O reported. A preliminary report on the crash could be released in weeks, but the cause of the crash likely won’t be known for another 18 months.
But in Lee County, the grief felt in losing an entire family is deep and clear.
“Travis, his wife and kids, were more than customers to us,” Los Charros posted. “They were friends.”
This story was originally published July 8, 2025 at 12:56 PM with the headline "Family killed in NC plane crash built a lively farm from scratch, a lifelong dream."