A father and his son died Thursday night after their small plane crashed while they were traveling home from a St. Louis Cardinals baseball game.
Jimmy Don Lewis and his son, Brayden, both of Siloam Springs, Arkansas, had been heading back after watching the Cardinals play the Milwaukee Brewers at Busch Stadium when their aircraft went down as storms moved through the area.
Jimmy, 48, was piloting a Beech 95-B55 with his 22-year-old son aboard on a flight from St. Louis Regional Airport in Illinois to Siloam Springs Municipal Airport in Arkansas when the plane crashed in a field in Monroe County near Waterloo, Ill., KSDK News reported.
“We extend our deepest condolences to the victims’ family and loved ones. Our thoughts and prayers remain with them during this incredibly difficult time,” the Monroe County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement.
Authorities believe the crash happened shortly before 11 p.m. Thursday.
Search crews, working both from the ground and the air, began looking for the missing aircraft around 2:30 a.m. Friday. The effort included law enforcement officers, firefighters, EMS personnel and drone operators, but heavy rain and low visibility prevented searchers from finding the wreckage until about 7:40 a.m.
Citing early flight data, the sheriff’s department said “the aircraft appeared to begin a turn, possibly in an attempt to avoid the storm, before entering what appeared to be a descending spiral. Radar contact was subsequently lost.”
