YATES, N.Y. — A New York fertility doctor who was accused of using his own sperm to impregnate several patients died May 28, 2023 when the hand-built airplane he was in fell apart midflight and crashed, authorities said.

Dr. Morris Wortman, 72, of Rochester, was a passenger in the experimental aircraft that went down in a pasture in Orleans County. The pilot was also killed, according to the county sheriff.

Preliminary findings indicate that “the wings of the aircraft became detached from the fuselage and fell to the ground,” Sheriff Christopher Bourke said in a Monday news release.

Wortman, a well-known OB-GYN in western New York, was sued in 2021 by the daughter of one of his patients, who became pregnant in the 1980s. The lawsuit said the doctor secretly used his own sperm while telling the patient the donor had been a local medical student. It said the doctor kept the secret even after the daughter, his biological offspring, became his gynecology patient.

Wortman did not comment at the time the lawsuit was filed.