Posted on 07/13/2026 7:06:02 AM PDT by Red Badger
A father and his 22-year-old son were killed when their small plane apparently flew into a developing storm on their way home from a St. Louis Cardinals game, with investigators saying the aircraft appeared to make a last-minute turn before spiraling down into a rural Illinois tree line.
The pilot, 48, and his son took off from St. Louis Regional Airport in Bethalto late Thursday and were headed to Siloam Springs Municipal Airport in Arkansas when the plane crashed near Waterloo, Illinois, the Monroe County Sheriff's Department in Illinois said in a press release.
The father and son have been identified as Jimmy Don Lewis and Brayden Ty Lewis, the Monroe County Coroner’s Office confirmed to KSDK.
Investigators said the pair had spent the evening at a Cardinals game before starting the flight home in what is believed to have been a Beechcraft Baron 55 private aircraft.
"Investigators believe the aircraft departed into an area of developing severe weather," authorities said. "Flight data indicates the aircraft appeared to begin a turn, possibly in an attempt to avoid the inclement weather, before entering what appeared to be a descending spiral. Radar contact was subsequently lost."
Emergency crews were dispatched around 2:34 a.m. Friday after reports of a possible aircraft crash south of Waterloo. Search efforts were hampered for hours by low clouds, rain and poor visibility, forcing authorities to rely on a massive multi-agency response that included specialized drone teams from Illinois and the St. Louis region.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Aviation Ping..................😥
It sounds like the pilot succumbed to that deadly syndrome, ‘Get Home-itis’.
Very sad indeed. I don’t want to contemplate what must have been going through the pilot’s mind those last moments of his life...
There are old pilots and there are bold pilots. There are no old, bold pilots.
“There are old pilots and there are bold pilots. There are no old, bold pilots.”
As a man who has over 20,000 hours I can attest to that.
I owned a Baron 55 for 10 years. It’s a fantastic airplane. Mine was not pressurized which means it has a low ceiling and can’t fly over bad weather. I flew the airplane and flew it well but I would never let myself get a license because I know myself and I would take off someday when I shouldn’t take off. So, I had a retired Continental Airlines pilot with 20,000 hours. We never had a problem and never flew into a Thunderstorm. Crazy and so sad.
Gottagetthereitis is lethal.
I’d rather be down here wishing I was up there than up here wishing I was down there. I have been in both those situations ... the former is annoying, the latter is frightening.
 | Terrible! This is a pic I took from my brother in law's Baron as we crossed the Lake Michigan beach shoreline as we made our way to the airshow at Oshkosh in 2018. While there I rode out a near by tornado in the tent we shared under the wing of the plane. One of the worst I've lived through. BTW that is one lonely stretch of lake out there, no boats, nothing but water as far as you could see. |
Descending spiral, I’m thinking it seems to be a classic symptom of spatial disorientation.
If a pilot is going anywhere near bad wx, he must have polarized radar on board and know how to read it.
The Beech Baron 55 is a light twin aircraft with retractable gear that is known to become a handful in extremely turbulent weather. It is an aircraft that is faster, more complex, and can get out of control much more quickly than the V-tailed Beech Bonanza which earned the moniker, V-tailed Doctor Killer long ago. My next-door neighbor has a Bonanza that he loves but hasn’t flown for years after he scared the hell out of himself and his wife on one too many occasions.
I started with hang gliders more than 40 years ago, moved to ultralights, and then to general aviation aircraft. We have lived on a small airport for the last 35 years. And yes, ‘Get Home-itis’ is definitely a real thing that has been a factor in my go/no-go decision-making process many times.
I guess the difference is that my skill level and ability to alter my plans in flight before things have gotten beyond my ability to deal with situations that I have gotten myself into have worked in my favor. Of course, my wife who is almost always with me when flying, is the ultimate arbiter between me and the weather; when she says NO, we turn around.
Of course, the other part of the problem that non-flyers do not seem to realize is that the weather can change incredibly fast and your observation skills and decision-making process have to stay ahead of it especially in a small plane.
But to me the unspoken biggest factor in this situation is that the Beech Baron 55 has a reputation for becoming a handful in bad weather. It is far beyond my skill level. We have been flying the same Piper Cherokee for 35 years and the skill level required is just so much less. And also, most of our flying has been in coastal areas on the West Coast where visibility and mountainous terrain can be problems, but we do not typically have to deal with the killer thunderstorms that can pop up in the Midwest and South.
One time we were flying down the East Side of the mountains on our way to the LA area and one small thunderstorm after another kept popping up in our path. We eventually landed in a place in the middle of nowhere Eastern Oregon called Christmas Valley, there was sage brush blowing across the runway. A light twin landed after us, and all of his radio equipment had been fried after he was hit by lightning. So, he wasn’t going anywhere after landing.
After fueling up we took off again and had continued adventures on our trip. We kept having to divert further and further East until we eventually ended up over part of Utah before being able to turn back to the West and came across the mountains just south of the cumulo-granite known as Lassen Peak. We had a 50mph head wind and some pretty serious turbulence but no actual storm activity. We were very happy to land at Yolo County Airport where they were having a big skydiving festival that day. From there we limped down to our destination, hours behind schedule and latge at might, Santa Paula Airport in Southern California.
The next day we were riding the roller coasters at Magic Mountain which we used to always have season tickets for. But compared to some of the real-life excitement we had experienced the day before the coasters seemed a little less scary.
That is so tragic!
I am grateful for my late father (CFII-MEL) having become ‘one with the airplane’ long before a mid-summer 1970 family trip from Mercer County, IL, to his parents in Corry, PA, then to Kitty Hawk before going to New Bern, NC. I was 16 and a soloed student pilot.
About an hour before Kitty Hawk, we were getting some serious haze, and I getting some left seat dual, got sloppy, looking outside and slowly easing into a climbing right turn. Dad quickly pointed at the instruments in front of me, and I corrected.
Two days later, late afternoon leaving New Bern for IL, we were looking to go west between two thunderstorms. As we approached the SE corner of KY the storms had consolidates so completely that we were surrounded at 8,500 asl. In a few minutes we lost sight of the ground.
Dad was left seat, didn’t use a headset back then, yet still understood the Center controller’s vectors in the roar of the 310’s engines and the pounding rain. He was in his zone: one with the machine. And I was getting a master demonstration of staying ahead of the plane. The ride was very rough, lasting maybe 15 minutes but seemingly much longer.
Then it turned smooth for a minute before popping out into a beautiful sunset. Behind us was a wall of white from the ground up to maybe 40k. Dad cheerfully thanked Center for being his eyes. You could detect the controller’s happy relief in his “Glad to help, sir” reply.
Bookmark
We are expecting the liberal media to call for the abolition of baseball games,
Yes. I can go around that storm. I see an opening. Famous last words.
Or a loss of lift in the wings. Microbursts make it impossible to get any lift, so even if you don’t see a thunderhead, these little monsters can set you down in a heartbeat.
very sad. I guess I’ll never understand why people take such chances for things like a game/not real important.
prayers for the remaining family.
....there is an old saying among aviators, if I recall, that’s as a student pilot, the inexperience will kill you and as a high-time pilot, the over confidence will kill you..I remember as a newly-licensed private pilot on a nice afternoon’s joyride suddently realizing whoa!!! I am almost getting “caught on top...” of a cloud deck...did an immediate 180 and landed at the nearest airport, thus saving my novice a**.....
I wonder if the pilot was IFR rated and if it would have made a difference.
I guess Captain Steeeve will soon expound.
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