CRASH KILLS PERRYVILLE ALDERMAN

DUTCHTOWN -- Perryville Alderman Robert V. Pirrie, 52, was killed late Wednesday afternoon, when the single-engine airplane he was flying crashed into a plowed, muddy field west of here.

Authorities said the Piper Cherokee crashed at a steep angle into the field, situated about one-half mile east of County Road 233, three to four miles west of Dutchtown. The farm field is owned by Wayne and Albert Deneke.

The crash occurred about 4:45 p.m. as the plane was preparing to make an instrument-landing approach to Runway 10 at the airport, authorities said.

Reached at his home late Wednesday night, Perryville Mayor Robert Miget said he was "devastated" by the death of Pirrie, who he described as "a close friend."

Pirrie operated a land survey company and a title insurance firm in Perryville.

Pirrie had been a Ward 2 alderman in Perryville since 1986. At the time of his death, Pirrie was president of the Board of Alderman and presided at meetings in the absence of the mayor.

"He was a super person," said Miget. "He was outspoken. He had his convictions and he stuck by them.

"He was a good family friend and he cared about his children. He was a super guy," said Miget.

The mayor said he and fellow aldermen learned that the airplane was missing just prior to Wednesday night's board meeting.

"It was right before the council meeting that we knew his plane was missing and had lost radio contact with the Cape airport," said Miget.

The mayor said the council considered canceling the meeting, but elected to go ahead with it.

"We had a prayer for him before the meeting started," said Miget.

After the meeting, the mayor and the aldermen waited at city hall for news about Pirrie.

Miget said they received the news of Pirrie's death around 9 or 9:30 p.m. "There were tears," said Miget, commenting about the reaction of board members to the news.

Norman Blumenberg, who lives on a farm about three miles due west of the crash site heard the plane go down, but thought it was a neighbor's barn door slamming shut. He said he had heard the engine on the aircraft sputter before hearing the sound of the crash.

When his son, Wayne, returned home, he told his father he had heard on a police scanner about a missing plane. At that time, the father and son and another brother, Rodney, drove over to County Road 233.

They looked over the field with binoculars and spotted what appeared to be some kind of wreckage. "It looked red, white and blue," said Wayne Blumenberg. Norman and Rodney Blumenberg then walked into the field, where they found the plane nearly buried in the soft mud.

Norman Blumenberg then called the Cape County Sheriff's Department to report the downed plane.

Because of the extremely muddy condition of the field, authorities had to use four-wheel drive vehicles to get to the edge of the corn field, near the crash site. From there, officers proceeded on foot and also used all-terrain-vehicles to reach the wreckage.

Sheriff Norman Copeland said the deep mud delayed recovery of the pilot's body until around 9:20 p.m. Much of the wreckage was buried deep in the mud with only the rear fuselage and tail section showing. Copeland said it appeared the plane crashed into the field at a very steep angle.

Deputies were assisted by the Gordonville Fire Department and Cape Girardeau Fire Department in extricating the body from the wreckage, which literally had to be dug out of the ground.

Capt. Steve Strong, of the Cape Girardeau Police Department, was among four officers that assisted the sheriff's department and volunteers in the search.

After learning that the wreckage had been found, Strong went to the airport where he stayed with the pilot's wife and daughter while an effort was made to recover and identify the body.

Strong said the wife and daughter had planned to pick up Pirrie at the airport at 5 p.m. because his plane was unable to land in Perryville due to poor weather conditions. Pirrie was flying in from Columbia.

Strong, who remained at the airport until about 10:30 p.m., also called a police department chaplain, who came out to the airport to wait with the family.

After the body was removed, Copeland ordered the crash site sealed off pending the arrival of investigators from the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board to begin to investigate the cause of the crash.

Cape Girardeau Airport Manager Mark Seesing said the pilot had contacted the Cape tower at 4:42 p.m., and was given the airport weather advisory, instructed to report in when passing over the Dutchtown outer marker to receive landing instructions. Seesing said that was the last contact the tower had with the aircraft.

The outer marker is a radio transmitter that emits a signal to assist pilots making an Instrument Flight Regulation (IFR) approach on Runway 10 at the Cape Girardeau airport.

At about the same time, FAA controllers at the Memphis Center reported the plane had disappeared from their radar screen.

The plane was on an instrument flight plan from Columbia to the Cape Girardeau airport.

A spokesman for the FAA's Kansas City Regional Center issued a statement on the crash late Wednesday evening.

The FAA said the airplane was a Piper 28 Cherokee, a single-engine, 4-seat plane. Pirrie was flying alone at the time of the crash.

The spokesman said Memphis Center had terminated its radar contact with the airplane, which is standard procedure, and turned the aircraft over to the control of the Cape Girardeau tower for an instrument approach at 4:45 p.m.

The Cape tower gave a weather advisory to the pilot, and cleared him for approach to what appeared to be Runway 10, which has an instrument landing system.

At that time, the tower lost radio contact with the pilot. The airplane was found about one hour later, seven miles northwest of the airport.

Just before the crash, MidWest Weather Inc. recorded overcast conditions with visibility at 2.5 miles, a ceiling of 400 feet and fog at the airport. Ironically, the visibility had improved slightly. Earlier, visibility was 1.5 miles

But about the time of the crash, the ceiling tumbled to 300 feet, according to the weather spokesman. The FAA's minimum ceiling for landing is 200 feet.

A Cape Girardeau airport official said that Pirrie had been flying for about 10 years. Miget said that Pirrie "flew a lot.

"He asked me to go with him several times and flew several of the aldermen to different places," the Perryville mayor said. "He loved to fly."

(Staff writers Mark Bliss, Jay Eastlick and Jim Grebing also provided information for this story.)