Two Onboard Lost In Central MN Crash
ANN REALTIME
UPDATE 10.25.07 0000 EDT: Damn. Late Wednesday night,
officials with the Todd County Sheriff's Department confirmed the
bodies of a missing University of North Dakota flight instructor
and her student were recovered from the wreckage of their downed
Piper PA44 Seminole.
KARE-11 reports an air crew from the Minnesota Wing of the Civil
Air Patrol found the wreckage near Turtle Creek Township at
approximately 1610 local time.
Lost in the crash were 22-year-old flight instructor Annette
Klosterman, and junior aviation student Adam Ostapenko, 20.
The two were on a VFR instructional flight from St. Paul, MN to
Grand Forks, ND Tuesday evening, when the plane went down.
Original Reports
10.24.07 2130 EDT: Officials confirm search
crews have located "a plane" in a swampy area of central Minnesota,
but will not say whether or not the wreckage is that of a missing
Piper PA44 Seminole belonging to the University of North
Dakota.
"We have found a small plane in our county," Todd County
dispatch supervisor Bob Cuchna told KARE-11 Wednesday evening. "It
is in a swampy area, northeast of Browerville."
The aircraft was discovered at approximately 1630 local time
Wednesday.
Browerville is located more-or-less along the planned flight
path of the missing aircraft, which departed St. Paul Tuesday
evening en route to Grand Forks.
1400 EDT: A search is underway for a University
of North Dakota aircraft with two people onboard. The Piper PA44
Seminole twin disappeared Tuesday night, on a routine flight from
St. Paul, MN to Grand Forks.
The Seminole (type shown above) departed St. Paul just
before 2130 local time Tuesday night, UND spokesman Peter Johnson
told the Grand Forks Herald.
Onboard the plane are UND flight instructor Annette Klosterman,
and student Adam Ostapenko.
Last reported contact with the aircraft was at 2215 CDT, when
controllers in Minneapolis spoke with the pilots as the Seminole
was in the vicinity of St. Cloud, MN. The FAA sent out a search
notice early Wednesday morning, when the pilots failed to close
their flight plan.
"What (the notice) does is alert airports and sheriffs and local
law enforcement on the path ... and asked them to start looking,"
FAA spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory said.
The Civil Air Patrol dispatched five planes to search along the
aircraft's projected flight path, and a ground search was conducted
off all airports between St. Cloud and Grand Forks Wednesday
morning.