Silke Jasso
A Jackson, Tenn., family of four on its way home from a Florida spring break vacation at Disney World has tragically died after the small plane they were traveling in on Saturday came apart over Alabama.
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Authorities have identified the deceased as parents Joseph and Jennifer Crenshaw, 45 and 43, and their two children Jillian and Jacob Crenshaw, 14 and 16.
Blount County Operations Commander Tim Kent said that the wings of the Cessna T210L plane that the Crenshaw family was traveling in fell off mid-flight. Joseph Crenshaw was piloting the plane, AL.com reported.
According to ABC 33/40, “Air traffic controllers lost call with the plane around 2:30 p.m, and received a ‘may day’ call at 2:34 p.m. Around the same time a band of wind came through the area.”
Then the plane went down, killing all on board.
An hour later, the Crenshaws were found in the fuselage of the Cessna.
The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the cause of the crash and will use all of the available information about weather and flight logs to determine what went wrong.
A woman who witnessed the plane go down and a man who found wreckage on his property spoke to WKRN about what they saw.
Brittany Reno said she saw the plane nose dive.
“It spun around and took a nose dive down. The wing came down over us, the wind carried it over into the field,” she said.
Charles Cullwell described what he saw as “a mess” that looked nothing like a plane.
“It is a mess, it’s a rubble of tin, and you cannot tell it’s a plane,” he said.
Grieving family members released a statement to ABC News.
“The relatives are grief stricken and in shock. They are a prominent family in Jackson, Tennessee, with roots that go back to the revolutionary war,” the family said.
The University School of Jackson, where Jacob and Jillian Crenshaw went to school, also released a statement.
“Please remember to keep the family and friends of this beloved family in your thoughts and prayers in the coming days, as well as Jacob and Jillian’s teachers and classmates,” Head of School Stuart Hirstein said.
