Commuter flight crash kills 13 near Kirksville

~ From staff and wire reports

A search for five missing passengers near Kirksville, Mo., ended Wednesday after officials recovered their bodies in the wreckage of a commuter plane that crashed and burned as it carried doctors and other medical professionals to a conference. While 13 people died, two others escaped with little more than broken bones.

"It was remarkable," said National Transportation Safety Board member Carol Carmody of the survivors.

The plane had taken off from St. Louis and went down Tuesday night with 15 people aboard as it came in for a landing in Kirksville, a city of about 17,000.

Carmody didn't release the identities of those who died in the crash, although some have been identified by family members and employers.

Authorities called it a miracle that anyone managed to survive the crash of the Jetstream 32, a 19-seat twin-engine turboprop flown by Corporate Airlines.

Corporate Airlines, based in Smyrna, Tenn., also flies in and out of Cape Girardeau's municipal airport.

Airport director Bruce Loy said the crash in Kirksville is the first for Corporate Airlines since its inception in 1996.

Rescuers found the plane's fuselage in flames, with one of its wings broken off. Most of the debris was found in compact area of about 40-by-60 feet, Carmody said.

The two survivors, a 44-year-old woman and a 68-year-old man, suffered only broken bones and some burns, and were in fair condition Wednesday.

"We see car accidents with worse injuries coming in here every week," said Dr. Charles Zeman, director of trauma services at Northeast Regional Medical Center. "This is truly a miracle."

The cause of the crash was not immediately known. Carmody said the NTSB expected to get an initial reading today from the plane's two flight data recorders.

"The recorders are both in very good shape. They were very solid," Carmody said. "The parameters on the flight data recorder are being downloaded right now and the voice recorder I'm told was of good quality."

The crew's last communication indicated the plane was on a normal approach to the airport, with no mention of any problems, said Elizabeth Isham Cory, a Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman.

The Kirksville airport does not have an instrument landing system, a valuable tool for pilots as they attempt to land in poor weather, said Randy Smith, a general aviation pilot who is president of the Kirksville Pilots Association. An instrument landing system provides pilots with both horizontal and vertical guidance as they approach a runway; the Kirksville airport only has a system providing horizontal guides.

Weather conditions at the time of the crash were overcast with misting and some thunderstorms in the area, according to an FAA weather observation system. There was a cloud ceiling Tuesday night of between 500 and 600 feet, which is within the minimum requirements for attempting to land at the airport, Smith said.

The plane clipped treetops before crashing on private property in a wooded area between two fields. Some of the victims were found dead in their seats. The woman who survived was walking around when rescuers arrived, and the man was found in brush about 25 feet from the fuselage, chief sheriff's deputy Larry Logston said.

Many of the passengers were on their way to a Wednesday conference on humanism in medicine, said Philip Slocum, dean and vice president for medical affairs at the Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine. Two were from the New Jersey-based Arnold P. Gold Foundation, said Barbara Packer, the foundation's managing director.

"As bad as you think it's going to be, it's worse to go through it. There's been a lot of tears. It's very painful," Slocum said.

The airline and investigators declined to release the names of anyone on board. But some family members and employers said Wednesday their loved ones or co-workers were passengers.

In New York, the office of Dr. Steve Z. Miller, director of pediatric emergency medicine at the Columbia University medical school, said he was one of the passengers.

"A lot of people in our class are very close to him," said Josiah Ambrose, a fourth-year medical student. "He has a lot of interaction with the students here because he's very loved. He was a pretty pivotal part of our medical school."

Also on the plane was Dr. Richard Sarkin, 54, who was affiliated with Women and Children's Hospital in Buffalo, N.Y., and was an associate professor of clinical pediatrics and the director of pediatric medical student education at the University at Buffalo. Kaleida Health spokesman Michael Hughes said Sarkin was aboard the flight.

Among the dead is a Dallas-area photographer, Paul Talley, 44, of Mesquite, Texas, said pastor Charles Wilson of the First Baptist Church in Sunnyvale, Texas. Talley's wife, Alicia, authorized her minister to confirm her husband's death.

A family friend and neighbor identified Clark Ator, 39, of Alpine, Utah, as one of the victims. McKay Pearson, 42, said Ator was a father of seven, a family doctor who shared a practice in Pleasant Grove, Utah, and served as bishop of his Mormon church congregation.

Dr. Judith Diffenderfer, who worked at a clinic in Saginaw Township, Mich., also was killed, said her husband, Jeff.

One of the two survivors is Dr. John Krogh of Wallsburg, Utah, a part-time faculty member teaching physical therapy at Provo College, the school said.