Co-Pilot Barely Survived Crash Site Blast

"They had a passion for God that was expressed by their passion for people."

Those words said Pastor John Grys, who serves as director of the Advent House at the University of Tennessee, was the first of what will be many eulogies in the wake of a deadly aviation accident near Collegedale Thursday. Four of the dead were leaders of the Seventh Day Adventist Church in Georgia. The fifth was their pilot.

The co-pilot, Jim Huff, was able to walk from the crash site to a nearby home before he collapsed.

"I stayed with him until help arrived," said Connie Bumgardner, at whose doorstep Huff collapsed. "He could barely say four people and a pilot (were on the plane). You could just see the pain in his face. I just told him to lie still and God would take care of him." She was quoted by the Associated Press.

Huff was treated at an area hospital before being released on Friday.

The five who died were identified as:

• Dave Cress, 47, president of the Georgia-Cumberland Seventh Day Adventist Conference
• James H. Frost, 53, vice president of administration
• Jamie Arnall, 29, director of communication
• Clay Farwell, 67, assistant to the president
• John Laswell, 36, pilot

Reverend David Graves, a Methodist minister, said he was working in his yard at about 1315 local, when he heard the sound of an airplane in trouble overhead.

"It couldn't have been more than 150 feet up," he said. "It was low. It just shocked me. It banked to the left at about a 20-degree angle and just fell out of the sky like a brick."

That's when he spotted Huff, bruised and bleeding, stagger away from the wreckage. "He was probably 150 yards from the plane and it blew. Man it blew ... flames shot up," Graves told the AP.

Initial reports from Collegedale Thursday and Friday indicated one of the Cessna 421's engines may have failed. There was no official confirmation of that.

The pilot, Laswell, was well-respected in the aviation community. "If I was going to be in a small plane, I would want him to be the pilot," Randy Hirsch, 35, of Knoxville, told the Knoxville News. "Flying was his passion.... He'd told me before about being in situations when the engine failed and he safely landed the plane," Hirsch said. "I know he would have done everything he could to land that plane safely."

Huff, a CFI, had volunteered for the flight from Collegedale to Knoxville. The accident is now under investigation.

FAA Preliminary Accident Report

IDENTIFICATION
  Regis#: 4215D        Make/Model: C421      Description: 421, Golden Eagle, Executive Commuter
  Date: 12/02/2004     Time: 1825

  Event Type: Accident   Highest Injury: Fatal     Mid Air: N    Missing: N
  Damage: Substantial

LOCATION
  City: COLLEGEDALE                 State: TN   Country: US

DESCRIPTION
  ACFT CRASHED UNDER UNKNOWN CIRCUMSTANCES. 6 POB, 5 SUFFERED FATAL INJURIES
  AND ONE IS UNKNOWN. ACFT SUSTAINED SUBSTANTIAL DAMAGE. ALL OTHER
  CIRCUMSTANCES ARE CURRENTLY UNKNOWN. COLLEGEDALE, TN

INJURY DATA      Total Fatal:   5
                 # Crew:   1     Fat:   1     Ser:   0     Min:   0     Unk:   
                 # Pass:    5     Fat:   4     Ser:   0     Min:   0     Unk:   
                 # Grnd:           Fat:   0     Ser:   0     Min:   0     Unk:   

WEATHER: NOT REPORTED                                                               

OTHER DATA
  Activity: Unknown      Phase: Unknown      Operation: General Aviation

  Departed: UNKN                        Dep Date:    Dep. Time:     
  Destination: UNKN                     Flt Plan: UNK          Wx Briefing: U
  Last Radio Cont: UNKN
  Last Clearance: UNKN

  FAA FSDO: NASHVILLE, TN  (SO03)                 Entry date: 12/03/2004

FMI:  www.ntsb.gov