CUBA, MO – The Missouri Highway Patrol has confirmed that Jeffrey Hansen, 54, died in a plane crash near the Cuba, MO airport Sunday morning during a thunderstorm. Around 7:45am, a single engine Piper PA-32 crashed in a wooded area three quarters of a mile north of the airport.
The plane, a Piper PA-32, went down in Crawford County, about three-quarters of a mile north of the airport, said Sgt. Cody Fulkerson, a public information officer with the Missouri Highway Patrol.
Fulkerson said two witnesses had independently contacted him and said they saw the plane splitting up in the air.
“There were severe storms in the Rolla area at the time the plane went down, and the storms definitely have the capability of tearing up a plane,” he said. “Both said that it sounded like the engine was in distress. When they looked up it came out the clouds and was breaking up.”
Hansen’s son and some family friends traveled to the crash site Sunday immediately after hearing the news.
Fulkerson said that according to Hansen’s son, Hansen had texted his wife, “saying that he was in very bad weather and that there was lots of turbulence.”
Flight records show that Hansen took the plane from Creve Coeur Airport to Branson West Municipal on June 3. Fulkerson said Hansen was flying Sunday from Branson to Creve Coeur. Records show that he took off at 7:01 a.m.
The Federal Aviation Administration was on the scene investigating and representatives from the National Transportation Safety Board were expected to arrive from Dallas Sunday afternoon, Fulkerson said
