On the way back to Aurora Municipal Airport from Louisville, a single-engine plane crashed Friday night in an Indiana bean field, killing all four people aboard just minutes after the pilot requested an emergency landing site.
Shortly after 8 p.m. Friday, the Beechcraft-Bonanza six-passenger aircraft smashed into the field behind a house on County Road 300 South in New Lebanon, Ind., an unincorporated farm community of 100 people about 30 miles southwest of Terre Haute, said Indiana State Police Cpl. Michael Capisik on Saturday.
“It sounded like a real loud zing and then, `Boom!’ ” said Dan Shryock, a crash witness who lives 200 yards from the field. “It was like a blazing inferno. We saw the pilot sitting in the front seat, but we couldn’t get to him in time before the second explosion.”
Flying in freezing rain and snow, the plane went down six miles short of the Sullivan County Airport, the airstrip where the pilot was directed to make an emergency landing.
All four aboard, believed to be residents of the western suburbs, were found dead in the wreckage, Capisik said. None of the victims, who were burned beyond recognition, had been identified Saturday, pending a review of dental records and notification of families. An autopsy was performed on one of the victims at nearby Sullivan Regional Hospital on Saturday afternoon. The others will be examined Sunday, hospital officials said.
The National Transportation Safety Board, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Indiana State Police Aircraft Accident Team and the Sullivan County Rescue Team were investigating the crash.
Two of the people killed were owners of the aircraft, said an owner of Lumanair Aviation Service, the Aurora Municipal Airport-based company that housed and serviced the privately owned plane.
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Bob Luman said the flight left for Louisville early Friday afternoon to pick up a student on spring break. The plane was on its way back to the Aurora airport, in Sugar Grove, when it flew into bad weather near southwest Indiana.
Aviation officials said the pilot had radioed Holman Approach, the local air traffic controller, shortly before 8 p.m. Friday reporting “trouble holding” the plane and asking for the nearest airstrip, Capisik said. The pilot was directed to Sullivan County Airport, about six miles away.
“We got a call from (the air traffic controller) asking if we had heard from the plane,” said Mike Walden, manager of the county municipal airport. “At around 8 p.m., we tried to call (the pilot) but got no response.”
Walden, a pilot, said landing conditions at the airport were poor Friday night and speculated that ice on the plane’s wings could have caused the pilot to lose control.
“There was a low ceiling, low temperatures with slight rain and snow. I’m convinced ice was building up on the airplane, and when it does that, it’s hard to control it,” Walden said.
Residents near the crash scene said the plane nose-dived into the field before bursting into flames.
“We couldn’t imagine what had exploded out there,” said Neva Hunt, who from her window could see the plane’s tail standing vertically alongside a thicket of trees next to the field.
“It’s scattered all across the field,” said resident Eric Hobbs. “Except for the tail and the wing, everything else is all burned up.”