Small plane crash in Illinois kills all 4 on board
Trilla, Ill. — A single-engine plane crashed in a field in central Illinois on Saturday, killing all four people on board.
Coles County Coroner Ed Schniers said the victims were two women and two men, but he could not release more details pending notification of next of kin.
The Cessna C180G airplane went down shortly after 10 a.m. near the unincorporated community of Trilla, the National Transportation Safety Board said via email. Preliminary information indicated that it struck power lines, the NTSB said.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Yahoo
Prominent bird researcher from Maine killed in last week's North Slope helicopter crash
Jun. 9—The crash of a helicopter on a chartered flight over Alaska's North Slope last week killed a well-known East Coast shorebird researcher as well as the pilot. The pilot and sole passenger were killed in the crash, which occurred 25 to 30 miles southwest of Deadhorse. The Robinson R-66 helicopter was operated by Pollux Aviation. The helicopter took off from Deadhorse at 10:30 or 10:40 a.m., according to the National Transportation Safety Board. Pollux lost contact with its tracking signal just before 11 a.m. The pilot received a weather clearance before taking off, federal officials say. The Special Visual Flight Rules clearance is commonly used, especially in rural Alaska, to land in low ceilings or visibility. The crash occurred on flat, featureless, snow-covered terrain, NTSB Alaska chief Clint Johnson said Monday. An NTSB investigator reached the crash site by helicopter on Friday for an on-scene examination but the agency still needs to remove the wreckage, Johnson said. Bad weather "pushed them off the site" and back to Deadhorse on Friday, he said. The agency is hoping to get a helicopter out Monday to sling out the wreckage. The North Slope Borough has not publicly identified either the pilot or the passenger. A spokesperson on Monday morning said the borough was awaiting permission from family members. A Pollux representative on Monday declined to identify the pilot. Passenger Shiloh Schulte was identified by Manomet Conservation Sciences, the Massachusetts avian research nonprofit that employed him as senior shorebird scientist. The nonprofit is involved in research from Alaska to Argentina, according to its website. Schulte was conducting conservation work at the time of the crash, according to a statement from Manomet. He was coordinator for the American Oystercatcher Recovery Program. "Shiloh worked tirelessly and resourcefully, collaborating with partners along the Eastern Seaboard to help rebuild the American Oystercatcher population by 45%," the statement said. "Shiloh gave his life in the service of something greater than himself, dedicating himself to preserving the natural world for future generations." The nonprofit created an online memorial site that by Monday featured numerous accounts from friends and colleagues as well as several photos of Schulte in various aircraft conducting research. Schulte was from Kennebunk, Maine, according to local media reports. A separate GoFundme fundraising site set up by Schulte's family called him "a lifelong birdwatcher, conservationist and scientist whose passion for the natural world was infectious" and said he died while conducting remote field research in Alaska. "Shiloh was doing what he loved most — working in nature to protect the birds and wild places he cherished so deeply," it said.
CBS News
8 hours ago
- CBS News
Small plane crash off San Diego coast kills 6 people on board
A small plane carrying six people crashed off the San Diego coast, killing everyone on board, the Federal Aviation Administration said Monday. The twin-engine Cessna 414 crashed at around 12:30 p.m. Sunday, not long after it took off, the FAA said. The plane was returning to Phoenix one day after flying out from Arizona, according to the flight tracking website Searchers found a debris field later Sunday about 5 miles off the coast of Point Loma, a San Diego neighborhood that juts into the Pacific, U.S. Coast Guard officials said. The water in the search area is about 200 feet deep. Although the FAA said all six people on board the plane were killed, authorities haven't identified them. The FAA said the plane is owned by vitamin and nutritional supplement maker Optimal Health Systems. But the company based in Pima, Arizona, said in a statement that it sold the plane to a group of private individuals in 2023, meaning the FAA database could be out of date. However, the company's founder, Doug Grant, said in the statement, "We personally know several of the passengers onboard and our sincerest condolences are offered to those affected by the tragedy, all of whom are incredible members of our small community." The FAA referred questions about the plane's ownership to the National Transportation Safety Board, which didn't immediately provide any further details about the crash. San Diego Harbor Police assisted with sonar to help pinpoint the area of the crash, CBS affiliate KFMB-TV reported. The Coast Guard also alerted the San Diego Fire Department Lifeguards about the crash, and lifeguards were able to find an oil sheen and some debris on the water. Any debris initially recovered by lifeguards has been turned over to Coast Guard officials, the fire department said. The pilot told air traffic controllers that he was struggling to maintain his heading and climb as the plane twice turned toward shore before going back out to sea, according to audio posted by and radar data posted by FlightAware. The controller urged the pilot to climb to 4,000 feet after he reported the plane was only about 1,000 feet in the air. The controller directed the pilot to land at a nearby U.S. naval airport on Coronado Island, but the pilot said he was unable to see the airport. A short time later, the pilot repeatedly signaled the "Mayday" distress call before controllers lost radar contact. A man who was out surfing when the plane crashed told NBC 7 in San Diego that he saw the plane come down at an angle, then climb back into the clouds before diving again and crashing into the water. "The next time he came out of the clouds, he went straight into the water. But after I saw this splash, about six seconds later, it was dead silent. I knew that they went in the water, nose first, at a high speed," Tyson Wislofsky said. The Coast Guard said multiple rescue crews had been deployed in the search, including two helicopters and multiple ships. The crash comes weeks after a small Cessna crashed into a San Diego neighborhood in foggy weather and killed six people.
CNN
10 hours ago
- CNN
6 people killed in crash of small aircraft off San Diego, FAA says
Air travel safety Airplane crashes Federal agenciesFacebookTweetLink Follow Six people were killed when a small plane crashed into the ocean off San Diego on Sunday afternoon, the Federal Aviation Administration said Monday. The final moments before the twin-engine Cessna crash – which triggered a major search of the Pacific Ocean near San Diego – are captured in an air traffic control audio recording from 'Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!' the pilot of the Cessna 414 can be heard shouting on the recording only five minutes after taking off from San Diego International Airport. The pilot and five passengers were killed when the plane crashed into the water 'under unknown circumstances,' the FAA told CNN. The Coast Guard is searching a debris field. An urgent exchange is heard on the audiotape as the pilot tells an air traffic controller he is struggling to maintain a heading. 'What seems to be the issue?' the air traffic controller can be heard asking 'Just struggling right now to maintain heading … and climb,' the pilot replied. The controller from the Southern California Terminal Radar Approach Control advised the pilot to land at nearby Naval Air Station North Island. Flight tracking data shows the plane taking off at 12:25 p.m. local time bound for Phoenix. In the five minutes that followed, the plane reached a maximum altitude of only 2,100 feet before making two turns to the left, according to open-source data from ADS-B Exchange. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the cause of the crash. Weather conditions at the time of the crash were not particularly poor. Visibility was 10 miles and winds were at about 8 mph from the west-northwest, with no gusts. There was a thick, overcast cloud layer at around 1500 feet, according to data from nearby airports analyzed by CNN meteorologists. This is a developing story and will be updated.
