A Jewish doctor from New York has been killed after the self-made plane he was flying broke apart in mid-air.

Dr. Morris Wortman, a fertility specialist based in upstate New York, was travelling aboard a Wittman W-5 Buttercup plane that was built by a friend when the aircraft broke apart over an orchard near Niagara Falls.

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A Wittman W-5 Buttercup plane (Facebook)

According to local police, “the wings of the aircraft became detached from the fuselage and fell to the ground in an orchard,” killing both Wortman and the pilot Earl Luce Jr.

Dr Wortman was a prominent gynecologist in his part of western New York State, running the Center for Menstrual Disorders in Rochester, where he was described as an "internationally respected authority" on fertility issues and a "world-class aviator".

However, in 2021, Dr Wortman was accused by the daughter of a patient of using his own sperm in fertility treatments after she discovered she had six half-siblings and "Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry.'

Morgan Hellquist brought a medical malpractice lawsuit against Wortman, accusing him of inseminating her mother with sperm that he told her belonged to a local university student, but in fact was his.

Hellquist's suspicions that her parents were misled began when she took a DNA test which revealed that she had Ashkenazi Jewish heritage despite her parents being told by Doctor Wortman that the donor was from Northern Europe.

Another DNA test taken by Hellquist, one of her half-brothers, and one of his biological daughters from Wortman's first marriage said that the three were siblings with "99.9%" certainty.

Hellquist also alleged in her suit that Dr Wortman had caused her "increased anxiety, migraine headaches, shock and confusion, feelings of despair, stress and other physical manifestations of continuing to learn that her donor father had been a serial sperm donor."

Wortman also treated Hellquist for her own infertility issues for nearly 10 years and performed numerous physical exams and procedures including pelvic examinations and transvaginal ultrasounds.