A plane crash killed a grandmother and grandfather from Illinois. They were on their way to spending Thanksgiving with their son and grandchildren.
When their Piper PA-30 Twin Comanche crashed in North Carolina, Patty Kreher, who was 66, and Joseph Kreher, who was 64, were killed in the crash.
Reports say that the plane was only a few minutes away from the Smith Reynolds Airport’s runway.
Before the plane crashed, the grandparents took off from St. Louis Downtown Airport in Illinois and made a stop in Kentucky.
They had been flying around the runway before “losing control” of the plane and crashing into the ground.
Pete Wentz of the National Transportation Safety Board gave an update and said that the couple was ready to land before the crash.
The pilot communicated saying he needed to circle the airport for a second attempt and during the circling maneuver, the airplane lost control and impacted the ground,
he said.
Wentz said that the crash investigation will look into the factors that could have caused it.
We’ll be looking into the environment, what the weather was, and what the impact was on that flight,
he said.
The investigation will involve both the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board.
The National Association of Flight Instructors says that Joseph Kreher is qualified to teach people how to fly.
One person who lived near where the plane crashed told what happened.
I couldn’t tell that it was a plane,
Susan Harrison-Bailey told the Winston-Salem Journal.
There was a lot of smoke … I could see it was smashed into the trees. It landed straight up and down.
A family member who was sad told WGHP that the grandparents would be flying into town for Thanksgiving.
Friends and family began to memorialize the couple.
It’s just going to be hard for everyone that knew Joe and Patty
said Freeburg Mayor Seth Speiser.
I knew Joe and Patty, they had a machine shop off of 159, very well-liked people in the area.
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