Two Westminster dentists were killed during a camping and boating trip in the Ozarks when their private plane fell apart in midair and crashed, officials and friends say.
Drs. Marty Bench and Doug Leonardson were killed Monday evening when their plane went down in a field five miles short of the Kansas City International Airport, according to Lance McMurtrey, whose brother went on the trip and who shares an endodontist practice with Leonardson.
“I don’t know what happened but it fell apart in the sky,” McMurtrey said today.
Capt. Frank Hunter of the Platte County Sheriff’s Department, said the pilot called the airport tower after crossing over the Missouri River and said he could see the runway and was ready to land, Hunter said. There were no later distress calls, he said.
The seven-seat, Piper 32 left Osage Beach, Missouri on Monday evening and had been cleared to land about 7 p.m., according to the regional duty officer for the Federal Aviation Administration.
One of the plane’s wings fell off in the air in clear weather and landed about a quarter mile from the crash site, Hunter said.
Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board investigators were on the scene today investigating the wreckage, Hunter said.
McMurtrey said Bench and Leonardson flew to Kansas City to pick up a friend from Florida who was going to join a large group of friends and business associates who were camping, he said.
“It’s not much of a vacation now,” McMurtrey said.
Dr. Bench was an oral surgeon and Dr. Leonardson was an endodontist. The friends who worked in separate offices often vacationed together, McMurtrey said.
The dentists were avid runners and would fly together to different parts of the country for road races the New York Marathon, McMurtrey said.
Leonardson, who has been a pilot for several years, bought the piper Cherokee about four months ago.
The dentists ran on Memorial Day in the Bolder Boulder 10-kilometer race.
Staff writer Kirk Mitchell can be reached at 303-820-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com.
