The two couples’ love of flying brought them together as friends and neighbors in an exclusive “fly-in” community in northern Kane County.
On Tuesday, the bodies of Clyde and Christine Huntington and Thomas and Doreen Torrance were found among the scattered wreckage of Clyde Huntington’s single-engine plane, which crashed the night before in a muddy cornfield less than 2 miles south of their homes in rural Hampshire Township.
The couples had been on their way home from a trip to Florida and were expected back Monday night, relatives said.
The deaths stunned residents of the close-knit Casa de Aero subdivision, where about 45 homes back up to a common airstrip and nearly every home has its own airplane hangar.
Neighbors and relatives said the tragedy came slightly more than a year after the Torrances’ 12-year-old son was killed on the airstrip by a single-engine airplane that struck him as he was riding his motorbike.
“This is just devastating,” said a member of the Torrance family who asked not to be identified. “It’s just beyond belief.”
The cause of Monday night’s crash was unknown. The remnants of the Piper plane, scattered across 100 yards of the farm field, were being moved to the DuPage County Airport for further investigation by federal authorities.
Eric Johnson, a pilot and friend of the Huntingtons’ who flew often with Clyde Huntington, was mystified about what could have caused the crash.
“This is totally shocking to me,” Johnson said. “He was always completely careful in flying and in maintaining his aircraft. There was never a question about his operation or maintenance of his airplane. You will hear that from everybody who knows him.”
Kane County Coroner Mary Lou Kearns said autopsies showed that all four people died on impact.
The Torrances were thrown from the plane, while the Huntingtons were found strapped in their seats, Kearns said.
Results of toxicology tests were pending, and a coroner’s inquest will be held, Kearns said.
The Huntingtons and Torrances lived down the street from each other in the 25-year-old Casa de Aero subdivision. A dozen cars were parked outside the Huntingtons’ home Tuesday as friends and relatives arrived to comfort the family.
“Clyde and Chris have been active and giving members of our congregation,” said Rev. Oscar Kraft, pastor of Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Elgin and a family spokesman. “We are thankful for everyone’s support and prayers.”
Clyde Huntington, 50, was an engineer. He and his wife, Christine, 49, had two grown children, Kraft said.
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Thomas Torrance, 45, and his wife, Doreen, 40, worked for Hauschildt Industries, an electrical contracting company in Marengo run by relatives.
“They did everything for people,” said Judy Meyer, 55, who lives two doors down from the Torrance family and stores her airplane in their garage-like hangar. “These people were special.”
Recently, when Meyer was sick and unable to bake cookies for a neighborhood cookie exchange, Doreen Torrance showed up at her door with a surprise: five dozen cookies.
“That’s the way she was,” Meyer said.
Judy Meyer’s husband, Fred, sometimes would take short flights with Thomas Torrance to have lunch.
“We lost some very nice neighbors,” he said.
In August 1996, the Torrances’ son, Daniel, was killed when a neighbor taxiing his plane struck the boy head-on.
The wreckage from Monday night’s crash was discovered shortly after 8 a.m. Tuesday, about 300 yards west of Walker Road and south of the Northwest Tollway.
Transportation officials said they knew how the plane struck the ground but not why.
The plane hit at high speed, but the descent was gradual and sloping, not steep, said David Bowling, a regional air safety investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board.
The airplane was traveling south and hit the ground with the left wing low, “indicating that it might not have been in control,” Bowling said. He added that when the plane hit the ground, the left wing and the engine separated from the craft.
The plane did not burn on impact, and the engine apparently was still running for some time afterward, he said.
Bowling said that it could take up to a year to determine the cause of the crash.
The crash scene was discovered by a Kane County sheriff’s deputy and a member of the Civil Air Patrol who were tracking a distress signal emanating from the plane, authorities said.
When the plane crashed Monday night, the impact triggered a distress signal, called an emergency locator transmitter, transportation officials said.
The plane’s signal was picked up by U.S. Air Force officials in Virginia, who then contacted the Civil Air Patrol, a civilian auxiliary of the Air Force.
The Kane County sheriff’s police were notified of the crash Tuesday morning, and deputies helped air patrol members conduct a ground search that brought them to the cornfield.
A memorial service for the Huntingtons is scheduled for 11 a.m. Saturday in Bethlehem Lutheran Church, 340 Grand Blvd., Elgin. Funeral arrangements for both couples were pending.