OMAHA, Neb. — Bad weather was reported near two Nebraska farm fields where small planes crashed minutes apart in August, according to preliminary reports from the National Transportation Safety Board.
The two crashes occurred on August 26, approximately 72 kilometers apart, and within 50 minutes of each other, Omaha World-Herald reported on Thursday. While the NTSB reports do not yet cite a probable cause for either crash, both reports include witness accounts of low clouds and bad weather.
Joseph Rudloff, 73, of Norfolk, Nebraska, died when his single-engine plane, a two-seat RANS S19, crashed at 8:41 a.m. near the town of Crofton. At 9:31 a.m., a single-engine Piper Cherokee driven by 79-year-old Charles J. Finck of Elk River, Minnesota, crashed near Wayne, Nebraska.
No one else was on board either plane besides the pilots.
Rudloff’s obituary described him as “an avid aviator” who died after his plane was engulfed in thick fog. The NTSB report said that 11 minutes before the crash, he called a pilot friend and said he was over Yankton, South Dakota, but could not land there because of bad weather. Yankton saw fog and light rain at the time.
Rudloff’s friend suggested he fly to an airport in Nebraska. Rudloff’s plane hit the ground near Crofton in the far northeast corner of Nebraska.
That same morning, a landowner near Wayne heard an engine revving on a plane that turned out to be Finck’s. The landowner then heard a pop and saw a black plume of smoke coming from his cornfield. He told investigators that clouds were close to the ground when he heard the plane fly by. The rain also fell.