Two businessmen with ties to North Platte died in a plane crash in a Florida marsh on Thursday night.
By HEATHER JOHNSON
The North Platte Telegraph
Two businessmen with ties to North Platte died in a plane crash in a Florida marsh on Thursday night.
The Indian River County Sheriff’s Office has identified the victims of the crash as Barry Cody, 65, a resident of Winter Haven, Fla., Kit Cody, 67, of Cody, Wyo. and Robert Krieger, 65, of Polk City, Fla.
The Codys were brothers and great-grandsons of William “Buffalo Bill” Cody, whose former home is now the Scouts Rest Ranch tourist attraction in North Platte.
According to Thomas Raulen, public information officer for the IRCS, the three men had been traveling back from the Bahamas in a Cessna 310. He said they had stopped at the Sebastian Municipal Airport about 30 miles south of Melbourne, Fla., and were on their way to the Bartow Municipal Airport when the crash occurred.
“It was about midnight on Thursday when we first received notification from the Federal Aviation Administration that an emergency beacon had gone off,” Raulen said. “We sent our patrol units to the area and also called in a helicopter from a neighboring agency because ours was unavailable at the time.”
Raulen said the helicopter flew for more than an hour, but visibility was limited by fog, and the search was called off until the next day. He said the wreckage of the plane was found around 10 a.m. on Friday. The recovery process took several hours.
“The location was in an extremely remote marshy area,” Raulen said. “The plane was in four feet of water, so we couldn’t get vehicles or watercraft in there — not even airboats. We called in the Coast Guard, and they assisted us with a helicopter and lowered first responders down.”
Raulen wasn’t sure who the pilot of the plane had been and said that information would have to be released by the FAA. The FAA had not returned calls from The North Platte Telegraph requesting comment by press time on Monday.
Raulen did say Kit was the only passenger still in the cabin of the plane. He said Barry was in the water and Krieger was on a wing.
Raulen had not seen any reports indicating the plane had caught fire. The National Transportation Safety Board is conducting an investigation.
(courtesy North Platte Telegraph)
(image courtesy of stock.xchng)
