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‘I
just heard a big boom. Like most people, I tried to
rationalize it — I figured it was a car crash. just
didn’t figure a plane would come falling out of the
sky.’
— MIKE SPRY
man living in home
plane crashed into |
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MIKE SPRY, 49, and his 25-year-old
son were asleep in the home when the plane hit their
attached garage.
“I just heard a big boom.
Like most people, I tried to rationalize it — I
figured it was a car crash,” Spry said. “I just
didn’t figure a plane would come falling out of the
sky.”
When he got up and saw his
kitchen wall was bowed inward, he then suspected a gas
explosion. He finally realized it was a plane when he saw
neighbors inspecting the wreckage with flashlights. The
roof and part of the walls were sheared off the garage
and the car inside was heavily damaged.
The dead were identified as
the plane’s co-owners, Earl Trahan and Jerry
Johnson; Johnson’s stepdaughters, Johnie Quebodeaux
and Shanna Shields, Shields’ husband, William
Shields; and the pilot, whose name was withheld pending
notification of relatives.
Authorities said Johnson was
going to Joplin because his 7-year-old daughter had been
injured in an accident while visiting there with her
mother.
Witnesses reported seeing no
flames after the crash, and Coleman said investigators
would look into the possibility that the plane had run
out of fuel. |
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Debris and remains were scattered
over a wide area in the residential neighborhood of
mostly newer, one-story homes.
The National Weather Service
reported overcast conditions at Joplin around the time
the plane went down. The pilot had been in touch with
controllers at Springfield Regional Airport, about 75
miles east, before the crash.
“There’s some
indication they were in trouble, but we don’t have
the exact wording from the tapes yet,” Coleman said.
Tapes of that conversation
will be reviewed by investigators from the Federal
Aviation Administration and the National Transportation
Safety Board, he said.
Authorities cordoned off the
neighborhood while awaiting the investigators Friday
morning.
The largest visible piece of
wreckage — the tail of the propeller-driven plane
— lay in the middle of a street. Other bits of
wreckage were strewn over several yards.
Spry’s home had cracks in
the walls but was declared inhabitable.
© 2001 Associated Press.
All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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