Authorities have removed the bodies of all four people who died when a
small plane crashed into a flight training facility at a Wichita
airport Thursday, along with the plane's cockpit voice recorder. KWCH TV reported that the bodies of three people trapped inside a flight simulator and
the plane's pilot, 53-year-old Mark Goldstein, were removed by Saturday
night.
The Flight Safety International Learning Center at Wichita
Mid-Continent Airport was severely damaged when the twin-engine
Beechcraft King Air 200 crashed into the top of the building shortly
after takeoff Thursday. In addition to the four people who died, another
five were injured.
Wichita Fire Marshal Brad Crisp said coroners were making
positive identifications of the victims and notifying their next of kin.
Investigators have not officially released the names of the people
killed inside the building, although KWCH TV reported the names of 3 of the victims.
The family of Jay Ferguson, a FlightSafety instructor who was killed, told KWCH the 78-year-old had worked at the FlightSafety center for 29 years. In
a statement, his family said Ferguson was presented with the Wright
Brothers Master Pilot Award last November. The award recognizes pilots
that have been associated with aviation for 50 years and accident-free
since their first solo flight. Ferguson's co-workers described
him as being an "excellent instructor with an eye for detail, having
unbelievable energy... A fun guy, with a big heart who was always happy
to help others; a wonderful human being," according to his family.
The husband and daughter of 48-year-old Nataliya Menestrina, a Russian translator for trainee pilots, told KWCH she was also killed. "My
wife was a very loving person, she was so happy to be an American
citizen," her husband Larry Menestrina said. "I'm very proud of her, the
type of woman that she was, and there will never be another person in
my life like her."
