Tea Woman Recalls Witnessing Plane Crash

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Tea Woman Recalls Witnessing Plane Crash

The tail of a small plane, which crashed in rural Lincoln County, SD, killing two people on August 16, 2009.

By Derick Fabert

Story Created: Aug 17, 2009 at 4:05 PM CST

Story Updated: Aug 17, 2009 at 4:38 PM CST

It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon in rural Tea, South Dakota and Karen Kelling was doing yard work when she noticed something strange.

Kelling spotted a plane doing stunts in a field near her house. She says it flew very low to the ground and then disappeared behind a hill.

"In that split second, I thought it was going to come back up, but it didn't and that's when I heard the crash. It wasn't a loud bang, but kind of a quiet muffled bang, but I had knew it had crashed," said Kelling.

The crash took the life of 28-year-old Todd Eslick of Sioux Falls and 12-year-old Tristan Schmitz of Brookings. Eslick was the newest member of the Vanguard Squadron, which is a group that performed aerobatics.

At this time, the Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) are investigating the crash. NTSB has moved the plane was moved to a hangar, where they'll continue their investigation.

Meanwhile, Kelling and others in the feel badly for the loss of life. She said, "The rest of the day I thought someone has to be told that their loved ones are gone."

Drew Sandholm contributed to this story.

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Monday, Aug 17 at 6:50 PM wth wrote ...

Who typed this? half of it didn't even make sense! learn to type, you are professionals aren't you? act like it

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