Seventh-day church officials killed in plane crash near Collegedale

<p>A small plane carrying Seventh-day Adventist Church officials crashed Thursday soon after taking off from an airport in a rural, mountainous area, killing all but one of the six people on board.</p><p>The only survivor, co-pilot Jim Huff, walked away from the crash site and was taken to a Chattanooga hospital, Hamilton County Sheriff John Cupp said. No information on his condition was immediately available.</p><p>The twin-engine Cessna 421 crashed around 1:15 p.m. EST in a thicket of trees about 1 1/2 miles north of the Collegedale Municipal Airport. Airport manager Frank Zarski said the Knoxville-bound plane crashed because of engine failure.</p><p>A hired pilot, John Laswell, and four passengers were killed. The plane was registered to the Georgia-Cumberland Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, based in Calhoun, Ga.</p><p>The church officials killed in the crash were Dave Cress, conference president; Jim Frost, executive secretary; Jamie Arnall, director of communication; and Clay Farwell, assistant to the conference president.</p><p>The group had been meeting at Southern Adventist University in Collegedale and planned to go to Knoxville for meetings with Seventh-day Adventists pastors and other conference presidents.</p><p>"We would encourage all people of faith to join us in praying that the families and co-workers of the victims will find comfort," said Pastor Don Schneider, president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in North America.</p><p>Huff was a volunteer co-pilot and a member of the Standifer Gap Seventh-day Adventist Church in Chattanooga.</p><p>National Transportation Safety Board officials from Nashville and Gadsden, Ala., were headed to the crash site Thursday.</p><p>During the crash, the plane caught fire and then broke apart, Cupp said. The fire department had to put out smoldering fires around the crash site and soak the area with fire-retardant foam.</p><p>To recover the bodies, officials planned to cut some trees and build a bridge over a small creek near the crash site, Cupp said.</p><p>Collegedale is about 15 miles northeast of downtown Chattanooga.</p>

http://accesswdun.com/article/2004/12/155749