Officials say 6 people died in Texas small plane crash
A man regularly volunteered to fly sick people in remote parts of the country to hospitals in Houston and Dallas was at the controls of a twin-engine airplane that crashed Monday in the Hill Country of Central Texas, killing all six aboard.
Jeffrey C. Weiss, 65, was a senior vice president for investments at Raymond James and Associates in Houston. The Texas Department of Public Safety said Weiss, who co-owned the Beechcraft BE58, was at the controls when the aircraft went down just before 9 a.m. Monday while approaching Kerrville Municipal Airport, about 70 miles (110 kilometers) northwest of San Antonio.
Also killed were Stuart Roben Kensinger, 55; Angela Webb Kensinger, 54; Mark Damien Scioneaux, 58; Scott Reagan Miller, 55; and Marc Tellepsen, 45, all of Houston, said DPS Sgt. Orlando Moreno.
The aircraft went down just before 9 a.m. as it approached an airport in Kerrville, a city about 70 miles (110 kilometers) northwest of San Antonio, according to Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Lynn Lunsford. State law enforcement officials secured the crash site ahead of FAA and National Transportation Safety Board investigators' arrival Monday.
The aircraft had taken from an airport outside Houston earlier Monday and crashed about 6 miles (10 kilometers) northwest of Kerrville Municipal Airport, Lunsford said. The flight was not a scheduled commercial route, he said.
The downed plane was manufactured by Raytheon Aircraft in 1999 and was co-owned by Weiss and Charles Morina of Dallas, according to FAA records.
Weiss loved to fly and the pair volunteered their time transporting sick people from remote regions to Texas hospitals for Angel Flight, Morina said.
"We flew people from all over the country to Dallas and Houston" for medical treatment, he told The Associated Press.
The cause of the crash hasn't been determined. There was a low layer of broken clouds but no rain in the area around the airport at the time of the crash, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Cory Van Pelt.
Weiss was a philanthropist who not only flew the sick to hospitals but was active in charities supporting children with special needs or who suffered abuse, said friend Bob Fuller. He told KPRC-TV of Houston that Weiss helped him conduct his Keels and Wheels charity event in Seabrook each year to aid abused children, giving both his time and money.
"I loved the man, I'll tell you that. He was generous to a fault. He wanted to support our charity any way he can and one of those was if I wanted to fly to Detroit to talk to General Motors, 'Call me first,'" Fuller said.
