Plane crash kills five IU music school students
This story was published April 22, 2006.
Indiana University and its Jacobs School of Music are grieving this weekend over the loss of five graduate students who died in a plane crash near the Monroe County Airport.
Authorities identified the five students as Robert Clayton Samels, Zachary J. Novak, Garth A. Eppley, Georgina H. Joshi and Chris Bates Carducci.
IU master's student Joshi, 24, of South Bend, was listed as the pilot of the single-engine Cessna 206 that crashed Thursday night near the Monroe County Airport after a flight from Lafayette.
Federal investigators said a final ruling on the cause of the accident could take up to a year, but a preliminary report should take about a week.
National Transportation Safety Board investigator Ed Malinowski said a team from his department and the Federal Aviation Administration would focus on three things.
"We're going to be looking at the plane, the pilot and the weather," Malinowski said.
The students were returning from a rehearsal for a concert in Lafayette. "It's a tragic loss for the university family," IU President Adam Herbert said at a news conference at the Van Buren Township Fire Department."
The faculty, staff and students in the School of Music are very close," he said. "It\'s a family atmosphere. The students are taking it very hard."
The students had flown to Lafayette to rehearse for a concert of that city\'s Bach Chorale Singers. The concert, scheduled for tonight at the Long Center for the Performing Arts in Lafayette, was canceled.
Gwyn Richards, dean of the music school, was meeting Friday evening with family members of the students who were killed.
IU Dean of Students Dick McKaig said the university was making grief counselors available to students who knew them. "As we become acquainted with who their friends were, we\'ll reach out to them," he said.
Indiana State Police spokesman Sgt. Joe Watts said the plane disappeared from radar about midnight. Watts said the wreckage was found just south of the Monroe County Airport - now officially called Kisters Field - at about 4:15 a.m. Friday.
The crash site is a densely wooded area southwest of the intersection of Kirby and Airport roads, south of a train trestle there.
Rescue officials reported there was no fire and the badly damaged aircraft was found upside down.
From the air, the visible wreckage was concentrated in a very small area. The remaining pieces had not been moved, and may be left in place until as late as Sunday.
Authorities said the pilot activated the lights at the airport from the cockpit but never landed.
Malinowski said the flight is believed to have left Lafayette sometime around 11 p.m. Joshi had logged an estimated flight time of 40 minutes for the trip.
Until it disappeared from the radar screens of both Terre Haute and Indianapolis air authorities, everything had been routine, but Malinowski said he and Federal Aviation Administration officials had yet to review any communication recorded between the plane and air traffic control towers.
A massive search for the plane began with several calls from the 5200 block of West Ind. 45 reporting a low-flying plane at about 11:40 p.m.
Callers described "the spit and sputtering of an airplane," and the sound of "extreme acceleration unusual for a plane coming in for a landing," Ellettsville Deputy Fire Chief Mike Cornman said. Some reported hearing a loud boom."
I was sitting at my computer and heard a loud plane fly over," Cristina Brooks said. "(I) heard the engines rev twice before the sound." She said the noise was like a loud "pop."Cornman, the official spokesman for the Van Buren Fire Department, said a transponder signal from inside the airplane was picked up by Civil Air Patrol aircraft that were flying over the site."
We had about 60 people out searching the area, but with the plane\'s transponder, we were able to triangulate the plane\'s position and eventually locate it," Cornman said.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Plane crash kills five
