SMALL PLANE (A CESSNA 414) CRASHES, KILLING ALL 7 ON BOARD IN MCLEAN COUNTY, NEAR BLOOMINGTON, ILLINOIS. PILOT ERROR AND HEAVY FOG MAY HAVE CONTRIBUTED TO THE CRASH.

             A Cessna 414a Chancellor, similar to the one that crashed in Illinois

APRIL 7, 2015

MCLEAN COUNTY, ILLINOIS

UPDATE:
 

A Cessna 414 crashed while on approach to the Bloomington-Central Illinois Regional Airport, Illinois. All seven on board suffered fatal injuries.
The aircraft was on approach to runway 20 when it turned left. The last Flightaware track point shows the aircraft at 1900 feet at a ground speed of 77 knots.
Weather may have been a factor to the accident.

Owner/operator: Make It Happen Aviation LLC, Towanda, ILL

 Registration: N789UP, Corporate

Manufactured in 1980

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A small plane (a Cessna 414) coming from the NCAA game in Indiana has crashed in central Illinois right after midnight Tuesday, 7 April 2015.  The plane may have been carrying 7 people.

There are reports the plane went down in McLean County in the town of Towanda, just outside Bloomington, Illinois.  The plane crashed at Rt. 9 and McClean County Road 2100 East, 2-3 miles east of the Central Illinois Regional Airport.

Multiple fatalities have been reported due to the crash and the coroner is on-site. Initially, 5 were confirmed dead.  Later, 7 people were confirmed dead.

The plane was a Cessna 414 Chancellor that left Indianapolis and was on its way to Bloomington, Illinois.

The crash site of the twin-engine Cessna Chancellor was discovered about three hours later. The Chicago Tribune reported that Scott Bittner owned the plane and was on board. The plane encountered heavy fog while trying to land and never made it to Central Illinois Regional Airport.

ESPN’s Jeff Goodman reported that Illinois State associate head basketball coach Torrey Ward was among those on the plane. Ward had previously served on coaching staffs at Jacksonville State and Ole Miss. He’d been with Illinois State for three seasons.

Awful news. A private plane carrying boosters and Illinois State assistant Torrey Ward crashed last night. Ward and others killed in crash.

— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanESPN) April 7, 2015

 

It crashed just short of the airport.

The FAA and NTSB are investigating; there no reports on what may have caused the crash, but fog was in the area of the crash.

The Cessna 414 is an American-built light, pressurized, twin-engine transport aircraft built by Cessna. 

It first flew in 1968 and an improved variant was introduced from 1978 as the 414A Chancellor.

According to accident reports compiled by the AOPA Air Safety Foundation, there were 46 accidents involving 414s between 1983 and 1993. The pilot was responsible for almost every 414 accident, and weather was a common link in the accident chain.

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At least five people were killed when their small plane crashed near the Bloomington airport while returning from the NCAA basketball championship in Indianapolis, according to officials and relatives.

The Cessna 414 had left the Indianapolis airport around 11 p.m. and hit heavy fog over central Illinois, according to Scott Barrows, the father-in-law of the owner of the plane, Scott Bittner, who was among those killed.

"My daughter's husband and three other men and the pilot went to the NCAA game last night and they were flying back and I guess the weather was bad in central Illinois.  It was foggy," said Barrows, a former UIC faculty member. 

"They were supposed to land around midnight.  My daughter was called at 4 a.m.  There was no contact," he said. "It has been confirmed they are dead."

Barrows said his son owned the plane but had a regular pilot. "They had a pilot, he was very experienced," he said.

Bittner, 42, had two children, a boy and a girl ages 10 and 12.  He owned a meat processing company in downstate Eureka, according to his father-in-law.

Bittner grew up in Chenoa and met his wife Carrie at Illinois State University in Bloomington-Normal. They married after she graduated.

"She's in shock, obviously," said Barrows, who was a clinical assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago Medical Center and currently lives in Virginia.

"It's going to be tough, but we'll be there for them," he said. "I'll be there for our grandchildren."

No information was available about the others on the plane.

Source:the chicagotribune.com