Missouri plane crash kills 2 pilots from Ohio

ST. CHARLES, Missouri — Two pilots from Ohio who were flying to Colorado were killed Saturday when their plane crashed in eastern Missouri.

George King, 55, of Westerville, and Amanda Youngblood, 35, of Huber Heights, were killed in the crash Saturday, the Associated Press reports. Westerville and Huber Heights are suburbs of Dayton.

Crash investigators tell KMOV Channel 4 that the plane, a small twin-engine Beechcraft Baron 58, took off from Spirit of St. Louis Airport in St. Louis at 7:10 p.m. It reached an altitude of about 8,000 feet when it began to have problems, KMOV reports.

The plane turned back toward the airport but then rapidly lost altitude. The plane crashed about nine minutes after takeoff in a rural, wooded area at a very high speed, KSDK Channel 5 reports. There was no distress call from the plane.

“There are some communications that we’re assessing that give the impression that potentially there was an issue, but we need to assess those further,” National Transportation Safety Board official Mike Folkerts tells KSDK.

The pilots worked for cargo airline AirNet II LLC, based in the Columbus area, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

Folkerts tells KMOV that King had more than 6,000 hours of flying experience. Youngblood had more than 1,000 hours. No passengers or cargo were on the plane.